In Another Life
by Coconut1214
Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything. They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought. Another Suliet fic.
1. A New Beginning

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Ch 1 - A New Beginning.

He opens his eyes and blinks a few times he brings his hand to his forehead, is head is pounding and he tastes blood in his mouth. He sits up and stares into the jungle.. He's confused. He looks down to see he's wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks. He picks himself off the ground and hears a rustling in the leaves. He reaches for a gun that he doesn't have.

She wakes up in the dirt; she stands up by leaning against a tree for support. She wonders quickly why she's wearing a skirt and a nice top. She shakes her head and rubs her hands over her face and clumsily walks forward through the leaves. She looks up.

"Kate?"

"Jack?"

They look at each other then at the jungle around them. Suddenly they hear more noises and they run towards it. They both stop in their tracks as they look out at the scene in front of them.

He stands with one hand leaning against something metal. His head is killing him; he rubs it and feels liquid. He takes his hand off and looks at the blood. He looks down to see he's wearing a black suit with a ripped tie. He looks back up to see what he's leaning against and he sees the four circles of the Oceanic logo. He pulls his hand away quickly and runs around to see what happened.

He moves around and feels sand underneath his fingers, he grabs some and brings his hand up and pours it on himself. He looks down to see he's wearing a suit. "Hugo" he hears his name and sits up to see Sawyer.

He coughs and spits when he tastes sand in his mouth. He opens his eyes looks down at the sand and uses both his hands to push himself to his knees, he stares down at the nice suit he's wearing and he looks around.

She feels wobbly on her feet and looks down to see her daughter in her arms. Her eyes widen in shock one minute she was standing on the beach with the Others and some people came up to show them that Locke was dead and some other person was impersonating him. Then there was a bright flash of light and she was here in what appears to be another plane crash. She also wonders why she's wearing a dress. She hears coughing next to her and she puts her hand over her mouth and starts crying. "Jin!" he looks at her and smiles "Sun!"

Jin runs to his wife and stops when he sees the child in her arms. Sun smiles through her tears and places her hand on her husband's cheek. Jin grabs her her hand and brings the other to touch his daughters head. He bites his lip to hold back his tears as she giggles.

They all turn around and stare in shock at the plane wreck in front of them and the people walking around the beach. They see Claire chasing after a three year old Aaron, Shannon and Boone arguing with each other, Charlie excited that his guitar was still in good shape and they hear Michael asking a very tall teenage Walt if he's ok. They look around to see that everyone that was on their flight is alive.

Hurley runs up to them. "What happened?" he asks them and they look at him and shake their heads.

"Why are we still on the damn island? And why am I dressed like this?" Sawyer asks joining them.

Jin, Sun and Ji Yeon walk up to them not wanting to let each other out their sight. "What happened? How did we get here?" Sun asks just as confused as the rest of them. Kate smiles as she sees Sun holding Ji Yeon.

"I think we were in another plane crash" Hurley pipes up "But everyone is like, older"

They all stand around in shock, unable to move. Suddenly Aaron runs up to Kate and hugs her leg. Her heart skips a beat as she looks down at him. He smiles up at her. She has tears in her eyes when Claire runs up to her. "Sorry about that" she says taking Aaron's hand and pulling him away from her. "He's usually not that friendly with strangers, he must like you" She smiles at them when none of them respond. "Are you all alright?" she asks them, they were all dressed nicely or they were dressed nicely now they were covered in dirt and blood. "I know we are all in shock, our plane just crashed onto an island. I was just going home to visit my mum, she hates that I moved to LA…and I'm rambling. Sorry, I get like that when I'm scared" She takes a deep breath. "I'm Claire by the way" Aaron tugs at her arm pointing to a yellow lab that comes running out of the jungle. "Doggie" Aaron says wanting to go play with it. All of them are still just standing there staring at her. "Ok, then I'm bothering you so I'll leave"

"Wait" Hurley calls out to her. She turns and looks at him. "This flight, was it 815?"

"815, no it's flight 1623" she replies "Were you on the wrong flight?" She asks feeling bad if they did get on the wrong flight only to get in a plane crash.

"No" he says and they all turn to look at each other.

* * *

Her bed starts shaking violently and she hears things crashing down around her. She feels the coolness of her sheets underneath her palms, she opens her eyes and it takes awhile to get her bearings. The room is spinning and head is pounding. When she can finally focus she sees the stuff from her shelves crashing to the floor. She sits up fast and cries out in pain her entire body aches. She takes a deep breath and ignores it as she runs out of her room and into his, wondering what she did last night that made her entire body sore and gave her the worst headache she's ever had. He's sleeping soundly as if nothing was going on, she hobbles to the window and looks out. She surveys the ground for damage and finds none. She hears a loud sound and looks to the sky and sees a plane rip apart in mid-air.

She watched the two halves fall on different parts of the island. "Mommy" he calls out to her and she runs to his side.

Tbc..

A/N: I'm still working on my "I'm coming home" fic but this theory had been floating around and I had to write a story for it too.


	2. A New Life

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

**Ch 2 – A New Life**

_***2004***_

_She woke up in the jungle to Alex worryingly screaming her name. She had no idea how she got there. She blacked out again, when she opened her eyes she brought her hand up to block out the light shining down at her. _

"_Welcome back Dr. Burke" Ethan said to her when she finally focused on him. She was in a bed in the infirmary. _

"_What happened?" She asked rubbing her forehead. _

"_I was hoping you could tell us, Alex said she found you passed out in the jungle" He said as he checked her vitals and drew some blood. _

"_That's the last thing I remember too" She tells him "What I supposed to be doing?" she asks drowsily, the room still felt like it was spinning and her back was killing her. She felt like she fell off a cliff. _

"_You said you heard a noise out in the jungle, you went to check it out" He tells her and then goes to the microscope. "Well, I can tell you why I think you fainted"_

"_Why?" she asks a little afraid of the answer. _

"_You're pregnant" _

"_I'm what!?" She asks making sure she heard correctly. _

"_You're pregnant" he repeats. "From what I can tell about a month along"_

_She lays back down and breaths, she sees Goodwin out of the corner of her eyes. She can't tell if he's angry or sad. They had stopped their relationship four months ago so it wasn't his. But she hadn't been with anyone else so she had no idea how this happened. "Well, that's great now I'm going to die" _

_Ethan places his hand on her shoulder. "You're not going to die, Juliet" he says "Now you have an even bigger motivation to solve the problem" _

_And she did, she didn't know who the father was but it was her child and she would do anything to save it. She worked day and night and through her morning sickness. But when the second trimester came she felt completely healthy. She checked her vitals every day and she was having a normal pregnancy. That didn't stop her from working though. _

_It was late she sat back in her chair and rested her hands on her swollen belly. She closed her eyes just for a little bit. In her dream she was holding onto a strong calloused hand and she felt safe, loved. She was smiling up at someone, and then she looks up and sees a metal scaffolding about to fall. She hears a man's voice begging her not to leave him but she knows she has to let go. So she does then she wakes up. She's been having that dream a lot ever since she found out she was pregnant. She can never see the face that the hand belongs too but she can feel how tightly it was holding on to her. The dream scared her because she wondered why she kept dreaming about her death and she wanted to see the face and no matter how hard she tried, she never could. She knew the face belonged to someone she loved and she didn't know why she couldn't remember._

_By the third trimester she was still having a normal pregnancy and she was out of the danger zone. She had developed a serum that she was working so far but she only had one test subject the other women were too afraid. Her serum was able to fool the body into accepting the fetus, but you had to take the shot 8-10 times a day. Christina didn't mind, she wanted a baby. _

_She was still working in her lab when her water broke. On September 22, after a grueling sixteen hours she delivered a healthy eight pound fifteen ounce baby boy. ****_

Present Day

She smiled down at her son now and rubbed her hand through his hair. She picked him up and walked outside. They were all standing there in shock watching the smoke trail still in the sky. She looked at her son and back at the sky. She felt something she couldn't explain. For some reason this plane crash made her smile.

* * *

They watched as Claire left with Aaron and go to Vincent. Then they looked at each other. "Do any of you remembering getting on that plane?" Hurley asks them. They all shake their heads. This wasn't what they expected to happen. Daniel had said that the bomb would stop Flight 815 from ever crashing and it did. But somehow they were all back on the island in another plane crash.

"Juliet!" James screams out suddenly. They turn to look at him. "If we never came here on that damn flight then she never died" he smiles to himself.

"What, Juliet died?" Sun looked to her husband. Jin bows his head. "When?" she asked.

"She fell, before we came here" he says.

"And how did we get here? What happened?" Sun asks, she was really confused. They all looked like they knew what had happened and none of them were filling her in on it. "What happened?" She asks again holding her daughter against her chest.

"Daniel said if we blew up a hydrogen bomb our flight never would've crashed on the island" Jin tells her. She should be shocked at her husband's near perfect English but everything else that was happening took precedent over that. "You blew up a bomb!" she says looking at them like they were crazy.

"No, it didn't work" Jack said "The bomb it didn't blow up"

"Well something happened" Hurley says "Somehow we got back here to our original time" Sun just looks at them it was a lot to take in.

"Where's Sayid and Locke" Hurley asks, he was looking for them in the crowd but they were nowhere to been seen.

"She didn't, we never came here so none of that happened" Sawyer says and takes off running into the jungle. "Sawyer!" Kate screams and then they all scream out and follow him. "Sawyer!"

He turns to them "She's alive, I have to find her" he tells them. When she looked at him, he knew what she was going to do when her hand left his he felt as if his whole world had ended. But if they had re-set it where they never crashed on this island then she never let go of his hand. They were given a second chance.

"If we never landed here then she won't know who we are" Hurley tells him as he was looking for which direction he should go in.

"We remember, maybe she does too" He says "I have to see" He looked at them with tears in his eyes. "If she's alive then I have to go to her…I love her" He couldn't even imagine a world where Juliet was not in it.

Hurley looked at Sawyer, he had changed so much in the three years they were gone. He couldn't say he was surprised that Juliet and Sawyer had hooked up. But he was surprised had how deeply they had fallen love. "If we never met her wouldn't she still be with the Others?" Hurley says to them "And you know… evil"

James whips his head around to them "She was never evil…everything she did was to protect Rachel and Julian" When she told him that Ben was using her family against her he wanted to hold her. He had no idea that she was a prisoner as much as they were. He thought she was one of them but she never was. All she wanted to do was go home to her family, to her sister and the nephew she's never met. He vowed to kill Ben if he ever saw him again for all the pain he had caused her.

"Who are they?" Hurley asks.

"Her sister and nephew" Jin answers.

"Everything she did was to protect them" Sawyer tells them and decides to go to the Dharma barracks first.

He starts walking and they follow. If Juliet was alive then they needed to go get her too. They had been walking for hours when he heard a voice, a voice that he would recognize anywhere. "Juliet". He ran towards it but Jin grabbed him and pushed him to the ground. They all crouched hiding themselves in the leaves as she came into view.

She walked purposely through the clearing followed by thirty other people all armed. She turned around to face them and they saw the gun in the back of her pants. He smiles as he sees her. She has her hair up in a messy bun and she's wearing a blue shirt half unbuttoned showing off a good amount of her cleavage and tight jeans.

They watch as Tom comes running through the jungle. "Juliet" he says out of breath. She turns to look at him. "The Middle Eastern and the bald man we found sneaking around the Hydra station…they" He has to stop and catch his breath.

"Did you give them food and water like I told you too?" she asks him.

He looks up at her. "They have the fish biscuits" another one pipes up.

"We are not savages!" She tells them all. "Give them food and water!" Tom nods and stands up. "Why didn't you just use your walkie, why did you come all the way over here to tell me?"

From there position in the leaves they can see and hear everything. They watched Sawyer stare at Juliet and they looked at each other. They had changed everything. Flight 815 never crashed and Juliet wasn't just still with the Others it looked like she was the leader. And they had Sayid and Locke as prisoners on the other island.

"I figured this was something you want to hear in person" he says "They are asking to speak to…Ben"

From the leaves they can see Juliet's demeanor change. "Ben" she says with a trace of anger in her voice "How do they know about Ben?" Tom just shakes his head." Tell them to feed them, if they don't eat just leave it out. I'm going to go over and talk to them" She faces the rest of the group. "The rest of you continue on your way, Jacob wants this finished by sundown" They nod and continue walking in the direction they were heading. Once she's alone she rubs her hand along the back of her neck. James wanted to go to her he knows when she does that she's scared. But he knows now she doesn't remember. They never crashed here so she never met him…them.

"Mommy!"

They all whip their heads around to the direction of the voice and see a small blonde boy running towards Juliet. She smiles and kneels down as the boy jumps in her arms. She hugs him tightly. "Jay, what are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry, Juliet" Alex says. Juliet watches as the nineteen year old runs up to them. "He gave me that look…and said he wanted to see you. I couldn't resist" she says smiling slightly. "I thought it would be ok"

She looks at her son and shakes her head and he just looks at her and smiles. He was charmer; he knew how to get the women with them to give him whatever he wanted. She had to wonder if that was one of her traits or if his father was like that.

James' mouth had dropped open as he stared at Juliet talking to the boy. The corner of his eyes filled with tears. They all looked at the boy with his mop of curly blonde hair and blue eyes. When he smiled he had the biggest dimples and there was no mistaking it, he was Sawyer's son.

Tbc…


	3. The Second Time Around

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Ch 3 - The Second Time Around

Juliet looks at her son, she wants to do nothing more in the world but spend time with him. There was too much going on and she was the leader and her people needed her. She smiles at him and places her forehead against his, then looks at Alex. "I have some work to do over on the other island; do you think you can watch him for awhile longer?"

"Yeah, of course" Alex says

"But watch him this time and don't let his charm fool you" she says rubbing her head up against his as he giggles. "You're the boss" she tells Alex

"Boss" Jay says pointing to himself with a huge smile. She knew why it was hard to resist those dimples.

"No, Alex is the boss" she says to him gently but sternly. "Be good and listen to her. Mommy will be back as soon as she can" He puts him arms around and hugs her squeezing tightly. "I know, I'm sorry. I have to go" She walks over to Alex before he can make her change her mind. She has to go she has to go find out how these people got to the island and how they knew Ben. She hands him to Alex. She smiles and wave as she watches them leave.

"Where Mommy going?" she hears him ask Alex.

"Your Mommy has important work to do" Alex replies.

"Why?" Jay asks.

"Because it's her job"

"Why?"

"Because strangers are on our island"

"Why?"

"I don't know" she tries to say calmly.

"Why?" he says with a smile.

Alex shakes her head. She needed to stop getting sucked into this game; she was really beginning to hate the guy who invented the word "why".

James sucks in his breath and smiles as a tear falls down his cheeks. He watches his son walk away with Alex and watches Juliet walk away in the opposite direction. Every time he tries to move they held him down.

"You can't just run out there, Sawyer" Kate says to him sadly "She doesn't know who you are"

"They threw Locke and Sayid in the cages; she'll do the same to you" Jack said

"I don't care" he says. "That's my son, if she has my son then we were together" he says "She just needs to remember" He didn't know what was happening, but he wasn't going to lose her again. Maybe she just lost her memories, but he knew that you can get them back sometimes. They made movies about it. So he'll make her try to remember. But he needed to get to her.

"We should try and think of a plan, ok?" Jack says to Sawyer "We will find a way to talk to Juliet, I promise" Jack says. James just nods his head.

"Maybe we created some alternate universe" Hurley pipes up "You know, like in the Sci-Fi movies. So…there's like alternate versions of all us here" They all look at him like he's sprouted a second head. "Like that would be the strangest thing that's happened to us" he says to turning away from them.

They started arguing about what to do next. They were still on the island and everyone from their plane crash was alive. But they were on a different plane, Juliet was alive and had Sawyer's son and the Others had Sayid and Locke as prisoners. It was a lot to take in; this wasn't what they expected to happen.

"James?" Jin calls out when he noticed that he was gone. They all turn around looking for him and calling out his name.

* * *

She rubbed her hand over mouth; she was staring at the monitors with Isabel watching them two of them talk. The Middle Eastern was pacing in his cage using that as guise to find how to escape from the cage and the bald one was standing in the middle of his cage staring at the door.

"How do they know about Ben?" Isobel asks her sternly.

"Maybe he wrote a book about himself, I don't know" she snaps back. They seemed to know each other, so that means she have to separate them. She turns around and walks outside.

"Juliet?" they both say and she tries to hide the shock in her face. She walks up to the bald one.

"Who are you?" She asks him and he stares at her.

"You don't know who I am?" he says walking closer to the bars.

"Should I?" she says with her eye brow raised.

Locke looked at her, she was telling the truth she didn't know who he was. Truth was he had no idea how he got here. The last thing he remembered was being strangled by Ben. Then he woke up in the jungle with Sayid and he had filled him in on what they did. They had traveled back to the 1977 and dropped a hydrogen bomb into what would eventually be the Swan Station. The bomb was supposed to re-set everything making it so their plane never crashed on the island. There was a flash of white light and then they were here. They had heard voices and went to check it out and stared in shock as they saw Ana-Lucia, Mr. Eko and Libby walking around the tail section of an airplane. Sayid figured that they did reset something but their plane still crashed. They knew they were on the other island so they went to the Hydra station to find out what happened. That's when they were caught. And now Juliet was standing in front of them, not knowing who they were.

Juliet stares at him, for some reason she felt like she should thank him. But she didn't know him so she had no idea why she thought that. She shakes her head slightly to get rid of the feeling. "Take this one inside" she tolls the two men that had join her. She shot him with her taser, she hated to do it, but it would make moving him much easier and he looked like trouble.

She turns to the Middle Eastern "There is no escaping that cage I went in there myself and blocked all possible escape routes"

Sayid smiles and nods his head towards her.

"Do you not speak?" she asks.

"I have nothing to say" he replies.

That one was killer; she'd have to warn her people to be careful around him.

She places food on the table, locks the door and walks into the other room to wait for him to wake up. When he does he groggily stands and uses the table for support. He looks down at the grilled cheese sandwich then back at her.

"What's your name?" She asks him since he already knew hers.

"John" he answers. She nods her head. "I'd like to speak Ben" he says

"I'm afraid that's not possible" she replies from her position behind the table.

"Why?"He says "Isn't he your leader?"

Juliet tilts her head and looks at him. "Is that who you want to speak too, our leader?" She asks him calmly. Locke looks at her. "Well, you're in luck then. You're speaking to her right now"

Locke back up with a confused look on his face. "What?"

"It's important, she'll want to know, let me through, Brotha" Locke turns his head at the sound of the voice.

"She's busy right now, whatever you have to tell her it can wait" he hears another male voice say. He keeps trying to peak through the door.

"Believe me, Brotha. If she finds out you made me wait to tell her this, she will be kicking your ass" The other voice had gone silent and he watched as the door opened and Desmond walked in.

"Desmond?" he says.

Desmond walks up to Juliet and eyes him curiously. "How'd he know my name?"

"They seem to know everyone's name" she replies taking Desmond by the shoulder and pulling him further into the corner so they could talk. She looked at him and waited for him to speak.

"Dr. Saroyan thinks the plane may have gotten through in a hole…"

"There's a hole!" She says a little excited, but trying to keep a neutral face. It was hard though because if there was then maybe they could finally leave the island.

"He's not entirely sure; he wants your permission to send a team to check it out" Desmond tells her not hiding his excitement.

"Yes, of course they can" she tells him, unable to hide her own smile with him smiling at her.

"He is hesitant though" Desmond says going serious for a moment.

She takes a deep breath. "Tell him if any of them, experience any symptoms they are to turn back immediately I'm not losing any more people." She knew it was dangerous to go out to far from the island. But if there was a chance that, that plane had made a hole they had to find out. No one has been able to leave the island in three years. Desmond nods and runs out of the room.

"Was that Latin you were speaking?" he asks her.

"Do you speak Latin, John?" She asks knowing for some reason that he didn't.

"No" he answers.

"Where was your plane headed?" She asks walking up to the glass.

"I don't know" he answers and it was an honest answer. He didn't know.

"You don't know where the plane you were on was going" She says "Were you not on that plane?"

"No, I don't think I was" is his reply.

She looks up as the alarm sounds. Someone had breached the perimeter. She gave one last glance at John and ran out of the room and took off into the jungle to look for the intruder.

He's running through jungle not caring if the leaves were smacking him in the face. After he had left them, he found a rowboat tied up to the dock and paddled his way to the other island. "Hey" he hears her voice and whips his head around; he eyes her up and down, he's speechless, he couldn't believe that it was really her; his Juliet was standing in front of him. He tilts his head, this was familiar. He was confused; this was how they first met. He looks down at her hands and sees her take the small black devise out of the back of her pants. _Not again_ He says as he tries to speak as an electrical shock resonated throughout his body and he falls to the ground convulsing.

She catches up to him and he stops to look and looks at her. A strange feeling comes over her, like she's done this before. She looks at him looking at her; he stares at her like he recognizes her. She hears the rest of her people coming up behind her. She reaches for her taser and shoots him with it getting him right in the neck. She goes to him sadly, she felt horrible for doing that and she didn't know why, she didn't know him. Tom and Chris come up from behind her and pick him up.

He wakes up as he's being dragged by two men. His head is spinning. They throw roughly to the ground. He tries to hold himself up with his hand and focus. He sees her there, his vision is still blurry but he sees her clearly. He tries to find the energy to speak, but he can't. His mouth just moves slightly.

She winces as they throw him to the ground. That strange feeling was still around her as she walks over to the cage slowly and puts her hands on the bars. _Why did she feel so bad when they hurt him?_ She turns around and walks away from the cage. She told Jay she'd be home to eat dinner with him. She'd deal with the new prisoner later.

He watches her leave and tries to call out to her, but he still can't speak and she disappears from his view. _No! _He looks to the ground and tries to pick himself up. But he's still too weak he looks back in the direction she left from willing her to come back. _Juliet!_

Tbc…


	4. Our Wanderings to Guide

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Ch 4. Our Wanderings to Guide

Sayid watches as Sawyer crawls along the ground tying to get the feeling back in his body. He could tell he was shocked by a taser and that it takes awhile to get back on your feet. He waits until he's sure that he's can talk again before speaking. "Sawyer"

James drags himself to the bars and holds on to them for support. "What" he says his voice still horse.

"What happened...at the swan site?"

He bows his head and closes his eyes. "Nothin'" he answers looking at Sayid. "The damn bomb was a dud. Jack threw it down there and nothin' happened" He says staring at the Iraqi. "The magnet started pulling everything in…and…it got Juliet." Thinking about it was making him upset "She...got pulled... down there!" He was breathing heavily trying to get that image out of his mind. All he could see was her face, her beautiful face looking up at him crying telling him how much she loved him then letting go of his hand.

"She's not dead" Sayid replies. James just looks at him. "Somehow we got here and Juliet is now the leader of the Others. So we changed something" he says "But we still crashed here"

"Not on 815"

"What?"

"That plane it wasn't 815" he didn't remember the number he wasn't paying attention when Claire had come up to them. "They're older, the people. Aaron's a toddler"

Sayid walks over to the bars on his cage. "How did we get here?"

"I don't know" he says. "Juliet came with us"

Sayid does feel bad for him, when he came into to his cell Sawyer had told him he had life here and he found out that life was with Juliet. "She doesn't remember us. We never met her"

"We did" James tells him. "She has my…our son"

"How do you know it's yours? Was she pregnant when she fell?" he asks

"She must've been. She didn't tell me" he says closing his eyes again.

"Then how do you know it's your son?"

"I just do" he answers strongly he was never surer of anything in his life. She had her reasons for not telling him. He wished she did. But maybe he should've been paying more attention. Her behavior had been erratic since they came back. That wasn't Juliet; Juliet was always calm and could handle anything you threw at her. She never let her emotions overrule her. He hadn't even noticed that he looked at Kate; he hated himself for it because it had hurt her so much. Enough where she wanted to erase ever meeting him erase the child she was carrying. Did she honestly think he wouldn't want her to have his child? He wanted nothing more than that. He was thinking about it when he was waiting outside the infirmary when she was delivering Amy's baby. For the first time in his life he wanted to be a father, he was ready to be a father and she was the only woman he could think of having a child with, one that he would be there for. He messed up with Clementine but he wasn't ready then, he didn't want to be responsible for another life, he was a screw up and she deserved better. But with Juliet he saw himself sitting on the Dharma porch or any porch with Juliet watching their kids running around playing. He never thought he'd ever be at the point but with Juliet he saw it all. She was the only woman he wanted to spend to the rest of his life with.

He was grateful that it was Sayid across from him. He knew when the time for talking was over and just sat back in his cage. He was lying on the ground looking at his side wishing for her to appear there beside him. He hadn't slept without her in two years; he was so used to seeing her face every night before he went t to bed that he didn't think it was possible to sleep without her. He was finally able to by thinking about Juliet sitting on the bed with their son in the crook of her arm while she read to him. None of that baby crap they print all the time. She would read him fairy tales the one's with the happy endings of course. She'd read him books with meaning books with a lesson to be learned. Those were the ones she liked. He imagined her doing funny voices for each of the characters making him giggle and snuggle closer. He fell asleep with tears in the corner of his eyes.

* * *

She was lying on her stomach reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." There was a single yellow Daisy in a vase next to her bed. She read the passage before her.

"Alice! A childish story take,  
And, with a gentle hand,  
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined  
In Memory's mystic band,  
Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers  
Pluck'd in a far-off land.

She saw someone stirring out of the corner of her eyes. She looks over and see a man lying on his back. He has dirty blonde hair and his face is turned away from hers. She looks further down at his chest to his waist where her crisp white sheets contrasted against his tanned torso. She places her hand on top of the book, confused. She keeps staring at him and then he turns around. Her breath caught in her throat, it was him, the man that she had captured yesterday.

"Mornin' Sunshine" He says in a southern accent.

She sits upright breathing heavily she looks to the other side of the bed, there was no one there. She lay back down with her heart racing. It was a dream. _"Why was I dreaming of him?"_ She says to herself falling back against her pillow.

She had just gotten out of the shower and she wrapped the towel around her chest and tucked the corner in and walked over to the mirror. When she feels strong hands wrap around her waist. "hmm" He says as he nuzzled against her neck. "You smell like Vanilla"

"You smell like gun powder" she replies back as she turns her head to side to look at him over the top of her shoulder.

He smirks back at her. "It's my new cologne, Eau de Gun Powder"

"Poudre de Pistolet" she says

"What?" he replies turning her around to face him while keeping his arms around her waist.

"It's French for gun powder" she replies with a smile.

"Damn, Blondie do you speak every language?" He says with both eye brows raised.

"Other's 101 is an extensive course" she says smiling. "Vous navez qucune idée"

"Was that French again? He asks and she nods her head "Course for all I know you just insulted me" he eyes her questioningly. "I don't mind though, you can say whatever you want to me, out of your mouth anythin' sounds sexy"

"Maybe I said something dirty?" She says smiling mischievously. She didn't but she could.

"Even better! Mind translatin' it then?"

She un- tucks the towel and let it fall to the floor and grabs him by his shirt and crushes her lips up against his. "Now you're speaking a language I understand" his hands press her against the length of his body and she instinctively entwined her arms around his neck. He spins her around and walks her out the bathroom door as she unzips his jump suit, he quickly discards it and pulls off his shirt and pants and they fall on the bed.

He made a rough sound in his throat as he moved his mouth urgently against hers and tangled his tongue with hers the kiss grew deeper, one of her hands snuck up to the back of his head. Her fingers stroked through his long hair and the little guttural sounds he made in response made her moan with pleasure.

Then she heard an annoying buzzing sound and decided to ignore it. She turns her attention back to him as he buries his face against her neck, kissing, nibbling, and nuzzling the delicate skin of her throat. She moans again helplessly and arches back. The buzzing sound was getting louder, she angrily throws her hand down in the direction the sound was coming from, she hit something hard and feels the pain shoot up her hand waking her up.

She sits up holding her hand and looks down at the bedside table at the alarm clock she had just smashed. She looks over to the other side of the bed and it was once again empty. She taes deep breath and tries to calm down her racing her heart. She had two dreams about him in one night. _Why was she dreaming about a man she's never met?_ The dreams felt so real like they had actually happened. She ran her hand along the other side of the bed, she felt like he belonged next to her.

She got up and got dressed and took her son to Alex's house. Alex answered the door and Jay ran into her arms. "Morning, Karl" she said to the young man eating cereal at the table.

"Morning, Dr. Burke" he replies and she looks at him. "Sorry Juliet. It's a habit" he says sheepishly.

She nods and smiles. "Are we going to be good for Alex today?" she asks Jay. He looks up at her and nods his head. "I don't know what time I'll be back, but there are a lot of developments going on right now" she tells Alex as she hugs her son goodbye. She walks out the door and Alex follows behind her.

"Are you alright?" Alex asks. Juliet turns to look at her. "What happened to your hand?"

She looks down at her hand that was black and blue. She had tried to put ice on it but then she had to wake up Jay and get him over to Alex's. So she'd forgotten about it. But now it looked swollen and bruised. "I got in a fight with my alarm clock" she replies.

"Was it mouthing off at you?" Alex asks with a smile. She had seen what people look like when they were on the receiving end of one of Juliet's fists; it was not a pretty sight.

She laughed. "Yeah, had to teach it a lesson"

"Must've been some dream?" Alex says looking at her. Alex must've noticed her smiling when she didn't even know she was. "Oh, _that _kind of dream" She replies with a huge smile.

"You're going to have to tell me about it after work" Her eyes light up with a mischievous grin. Juliet looks at her and turns her head away in embarrassment. "I'm nineteen now Jules, I'm not a little kid anymore. You were the one that taught me about sex when I was thirteen"

"That's because you needed to know the dangers and no one else would talk to you about it. Certainly not you father."

"Well I'm sure you want to talk about it and you're like the older sister I never had. Sister's tell each other stuff like that" Alex closes her eyes and regretts saying that. Juliet looks at the ground and thought of Rachel. Her own sister she figured she'd never see again. She had to laugh that when Ben was no longer the leader that something would happen where she still would be unable to leave the island. None of them could they were all trapped here. "I'm sorry" Alex says her face close to tears.

"It's ok" she reassures the young woman. "You're like the younger sister I never had. It is nice to be the older one" she says smiling and hugging her. She walks to the railing and places her hands on the edge looking out at the village. "I feel like I don't belong here" she says after a long pause in their conversation.

"You've been saying that since you got here" Alex reminds her.

"I know, but for the past three years I feel different. Like this isn't how it's supposed to be" Alex just looks at her strangely. "I feel like someone ripped the pages out of the middle of my book" she shakes her head "I feel like I'm missing part of my story"

Alex just stares at her "You have no idea...what I'm talking about" she says nodding her head slightly and smiling. She couldn't explain the feeling but she had it ever since she woke up in that jungle three years ago. The feeling was even stronger now. That man, there was something about him. She had to go see him.

Tbc…


	5. Life, What is it But a Dream?

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

**Ch 5 Life, What is it But a Dream?**

_**************_

_2004_

_Alex found her in lying face down in the jungle with her arm outstretched to the side with her hand clutched tightly to a rock. Alex told her it had taken them forever to pry that rock from her grip. _

_A few days later she went back to the spot they found her. It was above the Swan station. What was she doing there? If she had heard a noise she would've gone to the Flame. She didn't know why she had brought the rock with her. So she held the rock in her hand and stared at it. It was covered in mud and looked to be something you'd find at the bottom of a hole someone had been digging in not something you'd find above ground. There was blood caked on the rock as well when she tested it, it was hers. Why was she holding onto this rock when she fainted? Was someone attacking her or she was attacking them. She felt tears starting to stream down her cheeks. Why was she crying? She figured it was just pregnancy hormones. But she also found it hard to let go of the rock now that she was holding it again. It meant something but she didn't know what. _

***************

She stood at his cage watching him sleep. He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head with a smile on his face. She watches his chest slowly rise and fall with each measured breath, she looks at his face as the sunlight accented his cheek bones and played across his forehead and nose. She imagines her hands running along his face; gently touching the tip of his nose and moving on to his cheeks, his jaw line; she could feel the slight stubble underneath. She saw her hand moving down his chest and could feel his heart beating underneath her fingertips. Her own breathing had increased and she takes a step back. She had both her hands over heart. Her dreams had never been this vivid before, especially during the day.

He opens his eyes and sees her standing there staring at him. "Juliet" he says standing up quickly and she backs away from the cage startled.

She shouldn't be surprised that he knows her name too, but it wasn't that it was the way he said it. It sounds familiar and she knows that's not possible. She had to admit she liked the way her name sounded coming out his mouth On the way here she told herself that the dreams didn't mean anything her subconscious mind just picked him because she was the last person she saw and was trying to make sense of what was happening. It was just a dream and she's dreamt of men sharing her bed before. "Who are you?" she asks.

He closes his eyes when he sees her back away from him, afraid of him. He thought back to earlier when she changed her mind and he went to touch her arm and she recoiled from his touch as if he had burned her. Then she said that maybe they were never meant to be together and he felt like someone had shot him in the heart. All he could do was stand there and stare. He should've said something; he should've said she was wrong. Now she had gotten her wish he was erased from her memories, but not completely because of their son. They were together she just didn't remember. He had to prove to her that they were meant for each other and he was never going to leave her "James" he replies.

Her heart flutters at the sound of his name. _James_ that was the name she couldn't get out of her head and that's why she named her son James. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts that was just a coincidence; there were lots of people in the world named James. "How did you get to our island?"

He closes his eyes again and then opens them to look into hers. "We've been here" he says.

She narrows her eyes at him "You've been here" she laughs "I find that hard to believe. Because I've been here for six years and I've never seen you before"

"You have, Juliet" he says pleading with her with his eyes. He didn't want this. He wasn't going to abandon his son or her. They were his family now and the only people he wanted to spend forever with. He wasn't going to leave her side even if she had to get to know him all over again

Sayid watches the exchange and feels sad for Sawyer. He would've given anything to have Nadia standing before him even if she didn't remember anything. But he still knows how painful it must be to spend years loving someone to them not remembering who you are.

"I have, really?" she says biting her lip and smiling at him. "I think I'd remember meeting you"

"I don't know why you don't" he replies sadly. He takes a deep breath and tells her everything. He knows he's rambling but he figured something might jog her memory. He looks her in the eyes to see if anything was. When he finishes she's just staring at him.

"Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?" she says to him when she finally regains the ability to speak after listening to his story. "You're telling me that after a time_ traveling_, we got stuck in the 1970's and I joined the Dharma initiative as a mechanic, lived with you for three years then some other people came back from leaving the island and wanted to blow up the island. Is that correct?"

He bows his head and he knows that it did and sounded even more unbelievable in story form. He wouldn't have believed himself if he hadn't experienced it. "Yes" he says softly.

"So what happened next?" she asks curious now more than scared.

He closes his eyes again and can't bring himself to look at her; he knows she didn't believe him. "I don't know"

"Let me guess" she says with her condescending smirk. "You woke up"

He smiles at her when he knew he shouldn't but he misses that smirk, like he misses everything else about her. He pulls himself together; he needs to make her believe he needs to meet his son. _Why did this happen? _He asks not knowing who he was even asking_. Why doesn't she remember?_ He asks. "It ain't a damn dream, Blondie" he says not meaning for it come out like that. But then he sees it a flicker of recognition in her eyes. If he hadn't been looking he would've missed it.

She inhales when he calls her _Blondie_ that was the same name he said in her dream. But she has blonde hair so it wasn't a clever nickname. So she tries to let it go. But she couldn't again it was like when he said her name it sounds so familiar and so right leaving his lips. His story was imaginative. She had to give him credit his dreams seemed a lot more vivid then hers. "I'm flattered that you're dreaming about me, I am" She tells him "But I want the truth this time" she says with her eyes going cold.

He could've made it sound more believable. But he was kidding himself no con-man would've been able to make that story sound believable. He was debating if he should start listing off things he knows about her. He decides against it for now. She was angry and he didn't want to piss her off more. He would find a way to make her remember even if it killed him to try.

"He's telling the truth" Sayid says breaking the silence.

She turns to look at him. "And I'm supposed to believe a man who's barely said two words since being put in that cage." She turns back to James. "You're a good storyteller I can tell" she smiles "You should write it down, might be a bestseller someday" she adds. She has seen a lot of strange things on this island like its ability to heal, but her living in the past as a member of the Dharma Imitative was not something her logical mind could wrap around. She walks to the middle. "It's fine if you don't want to tell me how your plane landed here. I get it, you need bargaining chips" she says to them and looks James straight in the eyes. "But I promise you this, I will find out how you got to our island"

"Why do you need to know so badly?" Sayid asks her. He didn't know Juliet very well, but she handled confrontation like a professional and he admired her for that. And she was handling this situation like that, until now. If he wasn't trained he would not have picked up on the desperation in her voice while she threatened them. She really wanted to know how they got here.

She looks at him trying to recover her composure from that question. She knows he had picked up her pleading through her voice. She closes her eyes and takes a breath she doesn't know why she gets the feeling to tell them or why she thinks it would help "No one…" she sighs …Has been able to…" she pauses "To get to this island in over three years and no one has been able to leave"

He watches her calm down when Sayid asks his question. He noticed the change in her voice as well. He watches as her brows furrow to together meaning she was debating with herself on whether or not to tell something. "What?" he says sadly "Why hasn't anyone been able to leave?" He had forgotten about that in his own desperation to make her remember. _If she was the leader why couldn't she leave the island and go home?_

"If you go about 108 miles from the shore…you start to feel…" she pauses wondering why she was telling them this.

"You feel what?" he asks urging her to continue.

She sighs "Three years ago we sent a Submarine out to go to the mainland. When they reached 108 miles they crew started experiencing headaches and double vision. They ignored it and chalked it up to the pressure change. They went further out and the nose bleeds started…then some of them started experiencing siezures"

James walks closer to the bars and places his hands on them. Those were the same symptoms they experienced when they were jumping through time. _What did they do?_

"We lost contact with them" she says closing her eyes. "We sent a boat out to help them but all of them started having the same symptoms so we made them turn around." She bows her head "We never found the Sub" She shakes her head. "The people on the boat were fine once they made it back to shore. Whatever happens, only happens if we try to leave"

James wants to reach out and hold her. Whatever they did didn't help any of them, they were all still stuck on the island. She was still stuck on the island, trapped now more than ever.

"JULIET!" they heard a scream from the jungle and Desmond runs up to her.

"Desmond?" Sayid and James say at the same time.

Desmond again looks at them then back at Juliet. She just shakes her head and shrugs. "Dr. Saroyan wants to see you at the Swan station." He tells her.

"Did he find a way off the island? Did the plane make a hole?" she asks more frantic then she intended to.

"He said he'd only to speak to you" Desmond replies.

She looks back at James wanting to talk to him some more even if he was going to make up stories. This wasn't like her; he was a stranger, her prisoner. But he was looking at her with such sorrow in his eyes.

"Go" he tells her "If the Doctor thinks he found a way off the island, then go" he says and she can see that he honestly wants to help her. She turns around and follows Desmond.

After a few minutes of running with Desmond she realizes that she and Desmond were speaking Latin and he understood.

* * *

Two men were watching hidden in the overgrown leaves of the jungle. They watched as Juliet let her guard down and tell them what had happened to island and they saw the two men react with shock. They knew they were responsible for this, she did not.

"Why don't you give her memories back" Richard says to him slowly turning his head to look at his face.

"She needs to learn her lesson first" Jacob replies not bothering to look at him. They wanted to change their futures, bend the rules of time itself. This was a lesson he had to learn as well.

"What lesson?" Richard asks.

"About what is meant to be"

"Didn't she learn that when she let go of his hand?" Richard asks confused. He had made him go there and watch them that day. He stood atop a hill and he wanted to turn away but he couldn't. He wanted to scream out and warn Juliet to get away from that barrel. Jacob told him not to interfere. He watched as the chains jumped out and grab her as if they knew she would be standing there. He watched her try desperately to find something to hold on to not be dragged into a deep dark pit. He watched as Kate grabbed a hold of the chains and try to stop her decent, then he sees Sawyer jump over the debris to get to her and he grabs a hold of her hand just in time. He can't hear their exchange but he can see every emotion dance across Sawyer's face. He knew that Juliet was seeing that too. He truly loved her and wouldn't accept that he would lose her. Then he did. He saw Sawyer become lifeless all the light in him had gone out the second Juliet let go of him. He had to bow his head in mourning for Juliet that was a horrible way to die and he liked Juliet.

"No, she only learned that he does love her" Jacob replies startling him out his memory. Richard looks to Jacob again. "They are all learning the lesson, not just her"

"What is the lesson?" Richard asks.

"It only ends once"

Tbc…


	6. To the Flowers, and be Their Son

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Ch 6 To the Flowers, and be Their Son

Desmond pulls open the door to the Swan station and they walk along the hallway into the computer room he stares at it, the computer that he sat at and entered in the numbers every hundred and eight minutes. He looks at the timer above the computer.

_******************_

_2004_

_The alarm startles him awake. He overslept, he jumps off the bed and runs to the computer. His hands shake as he tries to enter the numbers in quickly. __He curses to himself as he enters the wrong number. What was wrong with him he's done this a million times? The alarm is getting louder and starts counting down. "8, 7, 6, 5". His hand hovers over the execute key and the room goes silent. He looks at the timer confused, it stopped. He sits there staring at the timer and looks around the room. Nothing was happening. _

_He waits a few more minutes and still nothing. The timer was frozen on the number 4. So he goes about his day but checks the computer periodically to make sure he wasn't imagining it. _

_A few months later he hears sounds coming from the hallway "The Hostiles" he whispers to himself. He goes to the weapons cabinet and gets a rifle. He hides behind the wall near the door and waits for them to enter. When they do he's stands there pointing the gun at them. "Penny?" he says as he sees a blond woman enter with her hands in the air. _

"_Hi Desmond, I'm Juliet" _

_********************_

He smiles at Juliet as they make their way further into the station. She had convinced him to join them by telling him that she wanted the same thing he did, to get off this island. She told him about her sister and how Ben was keeping her here against her will. When he looked into her blue eyes he knew he could trust her though he didn't know why.

Being in this station always gave her a strange feeling. The last time she was in this station was to get Desmond to join them. Ben told her she was going because she looked like the man's girlfriend. Apparently she looked like some other woman that they would never tell her about as well. She wasn't aware she had such a common of a face. When she arrived at the Swan station she felt bad for him. They had left him down here pressing the button for three years. She smiles back at him then looks in the room where Dr. Saroyan is standing in front of some moniters. "I hope you have some good news" she says looking at his whips of grey in his thick brown hair and into his pale hazel eyes. "Can we leave the island?"

He bows his head then looks at her. "No" he sighs. "We reached the same distance and the energy readings were the same. So we turned back."

Her eyes close then she looks at Desmond giving him a you-brought-me –all-the-way-down-here-to-hear-that-they-were-still-stuck-on-the-island look. He looks at her apologetically.

"That's not why I needed you to come here" The Doctor says to her.

"Then why did I come down her Doc?" She startles herself. _Where did that come from? _She never calls him that. She looks up at them they didn't notice it so she walks over to him to see what he has to tell her.

"The reason I called you down here was. That plane." He says. "Didn't come through a hole, it didn't come from anywhere. It was already here"

Juliet looks at him in shock. _"We've been here"_ That's what James had told her. "How?" she asks him.

"I don't know" He replies. "Remember what I told you about what happened on the day you passed out?" He asks her.

"Yes. You said that there were high levels of electromagnetic radiation readings all over the island. But they were especially strong right here" She tells him which she was skeptical about because if they were as high as he said they were then everything metal should been flying around or sucked on top of this station. And the only thing on top of this station was her.

He nods his head. "With traces of uranium and plutonium" he continues.

"The ingredients of a hydrogen bomb" She finishes. "Which doesn't make much sense; I think we would know if an H-bomb exploded" It was afterall one of the strongest and most dangerous weapons that man had invented. An H-bomb going off on this island would've killed everyone on it.

"That is true" He agrees "The thing is I think one did explode but the traces of electromagnetic energy already on this island counteracted causing a force field to form trapping us here as if we were in a... snow globe. To put it in laymens' terms"

"Snow globe" Desmond repeats. That was probably the best explanation they had right now. The force field stretched all over the island no matter which side you tried to leave from you'd hit the pocket of energy. It would make sense that it stretched to the top of the island as well.

"When I measured the time the plane appeared here....I got the exact same readings" he tells them as he was still in shock and repeated the test over and over again. It was impossible for the readings to be exactly the same as they were three years ago. He points to the papers he has laid out in front of him. "These were from three years ago and these were from yesterday"

Juliet looks down at them. She was no physicist but she sees that the energy spikes were at the exact same height on both sheets of paper. The percentages were exactly the same, everything was the same it looked like two copies of the same printout the only thing different was the date on the bottom. She suddenly feels light headed. "Jack dropped the bomb but it didn't work" She says

Desmond and Dr. Saroyan walk up to her. "What?" They ask.

"Jack dropped it down the hole but nothing happened" she says.

Desmond looks into her eyes, they are glazed over as she stares straight ahead "Juliet!" he says waving his hand in front of her face.

"Dr. Burke!" Dr. Saroyan says touching her shoulder gently.

She looks at them."What?" she asks as she sees them staring at her with worried looks on their faces.

"Who's Jack?" Desmond asks.

"I don't know" She replies "Who is Jack?"

"You said his name" Desmond tells her. "You said Jack dropped the bomb but it didn't work"

"I did?" She asks. Her mind was in a daze. She did feel herself talking but she didn't know what she was saying. She felt like her mind was taken over by someone else.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asks her.

"No" She answers "I…I think I need some air" She starts stumbling down the hallway holding on to the wall for support. Desmond catches up to her and grabs her arm with his. The reach the outside and she still feels different.

"Maybe you should go home and get some rest" Desmond says to her.

She nods her head in agreement. The feeling she was having was so strange she feels like there is someone else in her head trying to break free. When they reach her house he helps her to the couch. "Are you sure you don't want some tea?"

Suddenly an image flashes in her mind. _She's standing in the jungle; she looks around and sees a small hut and tables with canned food on them and a long stemmed yellow sunflower lays on the ground near her feet. "__You sure don't want some tea?" __she hears an older man ask her. She looks at the older couple standing in front of her with worried looks on their faces. "Maybe another time" She hears herself speak in a voice that sounds sad and resigned. _

"Juliet!" she hears and looks around the room confused. She's disoriented Desmond's worried face comes into her view. He's kneeling on the ground with his hand on her shoulder. "Maybe we should call the doctor"

"No, I don't need a doctor I just need some rest" She says pulling herself off the couch. "I just need some rest"

"I don't know, you seem to keep going somewhere else…" But he sighs and helps her to her room. He knows there's no use arguing with her. Juliet was stubborn and he'd end up listening to her anyway. "I'll ask Alex if she can watch Jay awhile longer so you can get some sleep" He starts walking out of her room.

"Des" she calls out to him and he turns to look at her. "Thanks" She smiles at him. "And I'm fine. Really" Her eyelids feel heavy and she can barely keep them open to watch Desmond leave her room.

_She lies on a flat surface with a grinder in her hand. She's wearing a bandanna with flowers on it and dark blue coveralls with a picture of wrench and her name stitched above "Moter Pool." She hears a knock and turns the grinder off and pushes herself out from underneath the van she was working on. "What's up?" she says looking up at James' worried face. _

"_Amy's having her baby" he whispers. _

"_What?" She asks taking her goggles off as he pulls her up pulling her close to him. _

"_Did you hear me? She's in trouble. Doc says she needs a cesarean" _

_She grabs him and switches positions with him. "We had an agreement" She says underneath her breath. _

"_Screw our agreement. He ain't never done one. I'm guessing you have." He says staring directly into her eyes. _

"_Don't you understand that every time I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it __hasn't worked__?" She says angrily. _

_He softens and knows how hard this is for her. "Well, maybe whatever made that happen hasn't happened yet. You gotta try. You gotta help her. You're the only one that can." _

_She throws her gloves at him and walks off._

She opens her eyes, she still lying in her own bed. She knew the logo on her jump suit was a Dharma logo. _"When we got stuck in the seventies we joined the Dharma Initiative, I joined the security team and you joined the moter pool as a mechanic"_ The story that James had told her was running through her head. _Were these just dreams or had they really happened?_ She sits up and runs her hands over face and through her hair. _How could they have happened?_ She leans her head back and looks at her ceiling _Did she have another life?_ All of this was giving her a headache. She gets up and runs out of her house to the docks and jumps in a boat and paddles her way to the other island. She runs up to the cage and stares at him.

"Juliet" he says and her heart skips a beat at the sound of her name leaving his lips again.

She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out she doesn't know what to say. She stares into his eyes and he stares back into hers. "How do you know me?"

He looks at her with such sadness in his eyes. "You know me" he replies "We know each other better than we know anyone else" She wants to know him but she doesn't, he's a stranger that she feels a connection with. But she doesn't know who he is.

He wants to cry, she doesn't know who he is. "I know you Juliet" he begins. "I know you don't like tomatoes on your sandwiches and you like mustard more than mayonnaise. I know you have a sister named Rachel. I know you have a scar hidden underneath your left eyebrow from when she threw the phone at your head when you were teasing her about her haircut when you were ten…you got 8 stitches"

She steps back and brings her hand up to touch the scar on her eyebrow and looks at him. He couldn't have known about that. He couldn't have been close enough to see it.

"I know Rachel was diagnosed with Cancer but it went into remission. I know she wanted to have a child but the chemo had made her barren. You're the miracle worker Juliet and you made it possible for her to have her child. I know that his name his Julian. I know that Ben took you to the Flame station to show you them."

She brings her hands to her mouth and feels the tears starting in the corner of her eyes.

"I know you like it when I nipple at your ear and growl your name when we…"

"Ok that's enough" Tom says running from the Hydra doors. "I don't know who these lunatics are" he says "They're liars all of them. The bald one keeps rambling on about how he's our leader! Can you believe that?" He screams pointing towards the door. "And this one" he says pointing at James "Is a good one, I'll give him that"

Juliet looks at Tom and then back at James. There's no way someone can guess the things he was telling her. The only one that knew about Rachel and Julian was Ben and no one knew about her scar. Even her past lovers had never noticed it. None of them paid that much attention to her to even see it.

James glared at Tom and wished he had a gun to shot him with again. He was getting through to her he knew it. Then he had to come and ruin it. "Juliet" he says to get her attention. "…Your son…he's ours…" he pauses "I'm his father"

Tbc…


	7. All in Golden Afternoon

* * *

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Ch 7 All in Golden Afternoon

After they lost Sawyer they camped overnight in the jungle and in the morning they walked back to the crash site, knowing that the people there would be freaking out and they figured they should help. Jack walked to the middle and tried to get the attention of the crowd of people arguing about what to do next. Jin walked over to him and put his two index fingers into the sides of his mouth and whistled loudly. The crowd went silent looking at him. Jack nods his head in thanks and starts talking.

"Sorry about that, but we needed your attention" he apologizes. "We're going to need to build shelters to protect us from the elements, we're going to need to send groups out to gather food and…"

"And who put you in charge?" Boone said walking up to him. He was happy that Boone was alive but he also remembered how Boone was when they first met.

"Actually the first thing we should do" A man's voice said from behind Jack. "Is find out if we have everybody" Jack turned around to face the voice. "Frank?" Frank walks besides him not thinking anything of the man knowing his name, they announce before the flight. "I have the manifest" he tells him so first things first. "Who are you?"

Jack swallows and clears his throat before answering. "Jack Shephard"

Frank looks through the list and nods. "Ok, Jack Shephard. We should make sure we have everyone that's alive and who didn't make it and who's missing" Jack still in shock just nods his head. Frank starts calling names off the list. "Michael Dawson, Walt Lloyd"

They watch as Michael gives a Frank a disgruntled nod and Walt says "here'

"Claire Littleton, Aaron Littleton" Kate chokes back a sob when she sees Aaron raise his hand in the air at the sound of his name.

"James Ford"

"He had to go the bathroom so he stepped into the jungle" Jin replies "He's here" he says with Sun still gripping his hand tightly.

Frank nods and continues down the list then says. "We broke apart in mid-air the tail section may have landed somewhere else on the island. I suggest we put together a search team to see if we can find them. They may need our help"

Jack looks at Kate and she nods. They both volunteer to go. They didn't land in LAX, they were back on the island and they could now do things differently. Getting the tail section survivors was as good a first move as any. They also had to know if anyone else remembered.

While they were packing some supplies to take with them, people started arguing again about what they should do.

"We should stay here in case rescue comes" Boone tells Frank.

"That could take days" Frank says to him. "I'm not about to sit around her and wait not when we can all do things to help each other survive until rescue comes for us."

"I think shelter is the most important thing we need right now" Michael says joining them. "We should start before it gets to dark"

Jack was throwing things in a backpack when he heard his name being called. He turns around and comes face to face with Walt. He had grown a lot in three years.

"Jack" he says again.

"Yes" Jack replies and continues packing.

"What did you do?" Walt asks making Jack drop the airline water bottle he was about to throw in the pack.

"Excuse me?" Jack asks not sure if heard correctly and turns around to look at Walt.

Walt leans back to look to see if his dad is paying attention, he wasn't. He was too busy arguing with some of the other people. Walt grabs Jack by the arm and pulls behind some trees. "What did you do?" he asks again.

Jack's eyes widen. "You…you remember?" He asks surprised.

"Yes" Walt answers. "I saw you, Hurley, Kate, Sun and Jin talking so I knew all of you remembered too. My dad doesn't know anything." Walt peeks around the trees and sees that his dad is still preoccupied. "I was lying on my bed in my apartment in New York dreaming about the island, then I woke up here on the beach with my Dad" Walt tells him. "So what did you do?"

Jack begins to speak and Walt sees his dad looking around for him. "I have to go. But I'm going with you to get the tail section survivors so you can tell me what happened" Jack nods.

* * *

She's stands there with her eyes closed as the words sink in. With the silence that surrounds them he can hear the pounding of his heart as it beats against his chest. He keeps his eyes locked on hers and it looks as if she was barely breathing.

She opens her eyes still in shock unable to move, unable to form words.

Tom stares at him "You expect us to believe that?" He says laughing.

He wants to punch the smile right off Tom's mustached face. "Juliet" James says trying to meet her gaze. He watches her face scrunch up and her mouth open and close as she thinks about what he said. She has to know deep down somewhere that he's telling the truth or he lost his only chance to get through to her.

"How…how do you know about my son?" is all she can manage to say. She woke up pregnant three years ago with no recollection of who her son's father was. Her mind was spinning and she was having trouble thinking clearly.

"Test my blood or whatever you need to do a DNA test!" he says sticking his arm between the bars. "That's our son, Juliet" He says staring her straight in the eyes. "You know me!" he pleads with her.

He watches her turn around and walks into the Hydra station; he hangs his head down against the bars and closes his eyes. He failed her, he failed them. He lost his family all over again, all for a stupid look. A look that he didn't even know he did. He wished he could take it back. Then he laughs sadly because he suppose he did. He never looked at Kate and he never looked at Juliet either. That was something he had to fix. He would spend forever looking at her until she was with him again.

Juliet walked swiftly down the Hydra station halls, the dim lights making it hard for her to see or maybe it was the tears that were forming in her eyes. She hurried her pace and ran into the infirmary and shut the doors behind her. She leaned against them and tried to catch her breath in between sobs. _Was he telling the truth? _She holds her hand to heart and bows her head. _Was that man out there the father of her son?_ She had always felt out of place here with them but three years ago everything changed. It felt different, like it wasn't supposed to be like this. That man standing in the cages told her he was the father of her son, the man whose face she sees and knows in her dreams but doesn't know when she's awake.

He hears the doors open again and she walks out with a medical kit in her hands.

"You believe him? Tom asks her

She ignores him placing the kit on the ground next to the cage and opening it up. She had worked up the courage to test him. There would be no harm in it and the outcome would let her know which one of them was the crazy one.

"You're going to trust this, redneck?" he says glaring at James. "Do you know him?"

"I don't know" She answers pulling out a cotton swab. "All you need to do is swab the inside of your cheek" She tells James. She holds the swab with the tips of her fingers. He reaches out slowly to take it from her. He places his hand over hers their fingertips touch and a strange feeling washes over her as she stares at his hand.

She sees a tan hand waiting for to her to grab a hold of. Then suddenly she's in the hole her eyes follow her pale arm up and sees she's hanging from the same tanned hand. She looks up even more and this time there's no darkness blocking her view and he's there encased in sunlight holding on to her. She's sees his face stained with tears as he struggles to hold on to her "_I got you" "Don't you let go! Don't you leave me!_" He says to her begging her to stay with him. She stares up at him and sees love in his eyes. But again she knows she has to let go to save him. She has to sacrifice her life. _"I love you James, I love you so much"_

Her eyes open and she's holding on to his hand tightly. He's looking at her with so much love that it makes her hurt. "You tried to save me" she says softly.

"Yes, yes" he says with tears in his eyes squeezing her hand not wanting to ever let go.

"I…let go" she says to herself more than to him. "To save you"

He's crying now and doesn't care. He knew she had let go to save him, but he didn't want her to "You shouldn't have, I'd rather die with you then live without you"

She snaps back into focus and pulls her hand from his; he falls against the bars trying to keep his grip. "No, Juliet" he chokes out.

She takes a few steps back trying to breathe normally. That had felt so real, she had felt the dampness of freshly dug mud in the hole she was in and she felt the pain of the chains as they tightened around her belly and the strain from her arm as she swung from his. She felt the strong calloused hand using every ounce of strength it had in it to hold on to her. She felt her heart beat race and her stomach go to her throat as she fell into the darkness.

But that couldn't be real, if it was she should be dead a fall like that would've killed her. But she couldn't ignore the feeling she had when he held on to her hand. She closed hers in a light fist and she could still feel the presence of his hand on hers.

James closes his eyes _she doesn't remember _he brings his still outstretched hand back in and holds on the bars for support.

"Are you doing the test or what?" She heard Tom ask angrily from behind her. He watched them as they held hands for a few seconds without saying anything. Then he got fed up with it. "DNA tests do require hand holding, he's a big boy he can do it himself"

"No" she says

"No?" Tom says. "No, what?"

"I'm not going to test him" she looks Tom straight in the eyes.

"You're gonna trust some guy claiming to be the father of your kid on his word alone?"

"I'm not some Biblical story Tom, Jay has a father" Somewhere deep inside her soul she knew James was the father of her son. When their hands touched for that brief moment the ache in heart went away and she couldn't explain it.

Tom looked at Juliet like she was crazy. He still had no idea why Jacob chose her to replace Ben. But one never questions the word of Jacob. "So you think it's this guy, do you even know him?

"No" she says sadly. "But I know he's Jay's father"

"HOW do you that? You just said you don't know who he is" He was getting angry now. They didn't need this. He didn't need this. She was a good leader she had kept them all alive and in line since they have been unable to leave the island. But he didn't want to deal with her if she was starting to go crazy. If there were strangers on their island they needed Juliet to sane to take care of them.

Her mouth moves up and down as she tries to think of an answer. She doesn't have one but she knows that this man is the father of her child and somehow, somewhere they were together to create their child. The look in his eyes was enough for her to know that. But she couldn't remember.

James smiled between his sobs. She didn't remember him but she trusts him and that was a start. He'd find a way for her to remember and find a way for them to be a family. "Can I see him?" he asks.

"Yes" Juliet answers.

"What!?" Tom screams loudly. "We are not letting him out of his cage, Juliet"

"_We_ are not doing anything, Tom" she tells him. "You are going to the Arrow to see if the rest of the survivors need our assistance"

"We're going to help them?" He asks incredulously

"Yes"

"Why would we do that?"

"Because, Tom. What else are we going to do keep them all as our prisoners, having to prepare them food and watch them like animals? None of them can leave this island either; they are stuck here like us we might as well learn to live together."

He glares at her uncertain of what to do. This was their island and she's never understood that.

"Go to the Arrow station. Tom" she says coldly.

"You heard her, Magnum" James said "Off you go" he waves his hand off in the direction Tom is heading for emphasis. Her back was turned to him but he Juliet had the look in her eyes, the look that made her blue eyes look like ice and could make any person do exactly what she asks without question. He'd seen her do it to people during their early times in Dharmaville, when they needed them to stop asking questions. It was a skill that he both admired and feared at the same time. He called it her Super Power and she called it her "Other" side and only used it when it was necessary.

Tom blinked a few times, sighed and turned around to go to the Arrow.

One other guy had joined them during discussion and was still standing behind her but wisely said nothing when Juliet went to get the keys to unlock the door.

He sat behind her in the canoe and somehow this felt familiar too. She tried to sneak looks at him and he was always staring at her with such longing in his eyes. _If she was with him, how come she couldn't remember him?_ She reached her hand out to pull them closer to the docks and reached back to get the rope. But James had already thrown it around the pole and was tying the knot. She pulled herself up and he did the same.

"_What about me?' _she hears a voice in her head as she walks along the dock_. "You'll be fine" _she hears her own voice answer_. "Maybe, but who's gonna get my back?" "Come on! Just give me two weeks" _she slows down when she realizes it his voice speaking to her. She turns to him "What did you say?"

He stops by her sudden question. "Me?" he says looking around even though he knew he was the only one with her. "I didn't say anything"

"_Alright, two weeks" _her own voice replies in her head as she's stares into James's eyes. She shakes her head and turns around. Maybe she really was going crazy. Hearing voices in your head even if it's your own is never a good sign.

James watches her walk in front of him, he had no idea what just happened. But for another brief moment when she gazed into his eyes he saw his Juliet looking back at him. Then like before it disappeared. So she was in there somewhere he just didn't have any clue on how to get her back. He wished Dr. Twitchy was here to tell him how to fix this.

* * *

He woke up the sound of loud yelling and sat up. He smiled when he saw her face sitting in front of him. Her red hair had golden specs in it from the sunlight and he just stared. "Daniel?" she said to him. He loved hearing her accent and waited until she called his name again before he answered her. "What?" he says to her softly.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

"I'm fine. What's going on?"

"Well, J-Lo over there is yelling again" Miles tells him sitting cross-legged drawing circles in the sand. He's angry because he was starting to feel the beginnings of a headache coming on and the woman had not shut up in ten minutes. "She's shouting loud enough that the dead people can hear her" and they honestly could.

"Miles, be nice" Daniel tells him.

"You're Mum told us to get on that plane, so we can find Benjamin Linus" Charlotte says "What are we doing sitting around here with them?"

"We don't want to raise their suspicions" Daniel tells them. "They can't know we knew that we were going to crash here"

"Who cares" Miles says "What are they going to do send Biggie after us"

"Here's some food!" A voice says from behind him, Miles turns around and falls over and scramble back a few inches as a tall dark muscular form is holding out a tray of food towards him.

"Thank you" Daniel says and takes the tray from him.

"You were saying?" Charlotte says with a smirk towards Miles.

"I didn't know he was there" Miles says trying to sound calm with his heart beating against his chest.

"We should wait until nightfall" Daniel says pulling out the leather bound book from his bag.

"Do you have night vision goggles in there too, Dr. Who?" Miles asks. "Cause the jungle at night is not somewhere you want to get lost"

* * *

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. Alex answers it with a surprised look on her face that gets wider when she sees the blonde stranger standing next to her.

"Is Jay awake?" she asks.

"No, I put him down for a nap an hour ago. He should be waking up soon" Alex tells her as she walks past her into the house. "Juliet, what's going on? Who is this?" she says pointing at James.

"This is James" Juliet says like it was normal to have newcomers to the island.

"Alex" he says under his breath remembering what had happened to her. That bug eyed freak had let his daughter die to save himself. He was happy to see her alive and grown up. He figured he should keep the screaming out their names to a minimum lest Juliet throws him back in the cages. He needed to meet his son.

He follows Juliet through Alex's house with Alex following closely behind him with a glare in her eyes. Juliet stops by a door and gently pushes it open. He peeks through to see a small form curled up on top of the blankets with his small hands in loose fists by his face. He swallows as he sees his shoulders move up down with each gentle breath he takes.

Juliet goes over to the bed and sits down she smiles at her son's sleeping form. She gently runs her hand through his hair and his eye lids slowly open. She moves over a little while he stretches yawns and rolls over. He rubs his eyes and they light up with excitement. "Mommy" he screams out and jumps up as her arms circle around him holding him tightly.

Jay closes his eyes and inhales he loves the way his mommy's hair smells. It smelled like the flowers he and Alex planted before he took a nap. He squeezed her tightly, he hated when she had to go away. He opens his eyes and sees a man standing in the doorway. He blinks a few times and the man is still standing there. It wasn't a dream. He pulls back from his mommy and climbs off the bed and looks up at the tall blond man with long hair.

A sob escapes James' throat as he watched his son hug Juliet. Tears start filling the corner of his eyes as his son stares up at him with bright blue eyes. His heart skips a beat when he smiles at him. He didn't know what was happening but if it was almost instinctual as if somebody pushed him to his knees as Jay ran to him and wrapped his tiny arms around his neck. James was at a loss of what to do with his own arms; he had never been this close to a child before. An overwhelming since of protectiveness washed over him. This was his son, his son with Juliet. He lay his hands over his son they looked massive against his small back.

Juliet let out a small cry when she saw her son in James' arms. Jay had never run to hug someone he didn't know. It was almost as if Jay did know who he was. But again that was impossible. There's no way Jay could know who is father was. But here he was holding onto the stranger like he held onto her. James' eyes meet hers and he smiles a smile that matched her son's almost identically. She places both her hands over her mouth as tears stream down her face.

Tbc…


	8. Speak Gently

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

A/N: Sorry I took so long for the update work's been keeping me busy and I thought I'd be a nice older sister and support my sister by driving all over the state to watch her play in her basketball tournaments.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

She sat on the bed watching her son hug a man he didn't know. She saw the happiness in his face as Jay held on to him tightly. They looked so comfortable holding each other like it was something they did every day. Like father and son. For a moment she was lost in a dream. Where James had been away for a long time and Jay and she had been patiently waiting for him to return. She let herself get lost in that moment because it felt so right and that the dream of being trapped on this island was the nightmare. This is what she was supposed to wake up to, a family.

"Juliet, what's going on?" Alex's voice broke through her haze. She shook her head and looked towards the door where Alex was standing with her arms crossed and staring intensely at James. "Who is this?"

Juliet closes her eyes takes a deep breath and gets up and walks towards Alex.

Jay liked the way the man smells, he smelled like the outside. Like mud and dirt the things he liked playing in. Mommy didn't like him too, but he'd find ways too. Then she'd catch him give him a bath and he'd smell like soap. This man felt safe. Jay smiles and let go of his neck and grabs his hand. He wanted to show the man his toys.

Juliet and Alex were leaning on both sides of the door frame watching Jay take James by the hand and show him around his room, pointing at everything excitedly. "Juliet, who is that?" Alex asks again as Juliet just smiles at them.

"He's Jay's father" she answers simply.

Alex is taken back in shock. "What?" she whispers loudly. "How?"

She looks Alex in the eyes and replies. "I don't know"

Alex looks into the blue eyes of the woman that became her family, the only family she could count on besides Karl. And for the first time she saw Juliet genuinely happy. Sure she smiled and laughed with them. But when you looked into her eyes you saw a hint of sadness. When she asked all Juliet would say it was because she missed her sister and wanted to leave this hell hole. But Alex saw it was something more, maybe she was right she was missing something from her life. Her son's father was a mystery that made the rest of them suspicious. But so many things started happening afterwards that it was pushed into the background.

"Alex!" Karl says running down the hallway towards them. "Why's the door open?" he asks and stops when he sees a strange man in Jay's room. He places himself in front of Alex. "Who's that?"

James looked up and smiled at the scrawny man standing in front of his girlfriend to protect her when Alex could probably take him down. Karl was alive and still with Alex. He remembered what he told the young man years ago when he first met him. At the time he thought it was someone else, but she never even took the time to know his name, let alone lie down with him and look at the sky. Then he found the one, the one that was waiting for him when he rose out of the ocean after giving up his freedom, after giving her up, she wasn't worth the trouble. With Juliet they'd lie there for hours looking at the stars.

"That's Jay's father" Alex tells Karl then looks at Juliet, still not believing her.

Karl blinks his eyes a few times trying to process that information. "What?"

"That's what I said" Alex tells him.

"You two live together?" James asks picking up the wooden farmer and putting him in the fenced area.

"Why does that matter to you" Alex says to him coldly.

"Guess it don't" he replies with a slight smile.

"No, daddy the dat's for the aminals" Jay says.

James could swear he felt his heart stop beating when he heard that word leave his son's lips. Jay wasn't even looking at them; he just picked up the farmer and replaced it with a cow. Juliet fell against the wall unable to breathe. Karl and Alex are stunned into silence.

"Hey, man" Jay says tapping James arm with his hand. "Hey, man. You can put nother cow there" he says pointing the wooden cow lying next to him. He looked up because they weren't paying attention to him. "Mommy!" he says worriedly as he sees her slummed against the wall outside his room. He gets up and runs to her. "What wrong, mommy" he brings his hand up to wipe the tears from her eyes. "You fall down?"

He didn't even realize what he did; was it an accident or was it instinctual? She puts her arms around her son and tries to stop crying because she was scaring him.

James is to shocked to move. He never thought he'd want to hear someone call him daddy but when he heard it felt almost euphoric. He was a daddy. He wasn't Clementine's daddy, because he wasn't there for her. You have to be there for your kid to be dad and he was going to be there for his son and for Juliet and if he ever got of this island he'd find Clementine.

The crackle of her walkie talkie startles her. It takes a minute for her to gather herself together to answer it.

"I wanna talk" Jay says reaching for the walkie on her belt.

"No, Jay. I'm sorry mommy has to take this" she tells her son gently. "Yes" she speaks into hoping her voice sounded normal.

"We found three more" comes through the static.

She closes her eyes. "What do they want?" she asks afraid of the reply.

"To speak to him"

* * *

"I'm going with them" Walt told his dad whom he expected to hear a thousand reasons why he was not going. But Michael surprised him by saying "Fine, but be careful" Walt was shocked he'd hadn't been with his dad since they got off the island. Not after what he told him. He killed two people to rescue him. He couldn't look at him after that. That was three years ago. But now here they were together again.

"You're letting me go" Walks asks skeptically.

"Yes, you're sixteen Walt. I trust you" Michael tells him while drawing structures in the sand. He then gets up and goes over to Jack. Walt is surprised he hasn't seen or spoken to his dad in three years so how would he know to trust him? He really needed to find out what was going on. "You're a doctor right?" Michael says walking up to Jack. "My boy's going with"

Jack just nods, seeing Michael again wasn't giving him pleasant memories, all he saw blood and the bodies of two innocent women.

Michael nods. "Can you do me a favor and look out for him. He's sixteen and he's a good kid, I just want him back in one piece."

"Of course" Jack replies figuring he should say more. "We really appreciate his help, if there's any other kids over there it might help to have him along"

"Thanks, man" Michael replies and takes Walt by the shoulders. "Stay with them at all times, don't touch anything until they say it's safe, bring extra clothes and water…"

"I got it, dad" Walt says "I'll be careful and stay close to them" he smiles until his dad walks away. It felt so weird seeing him again, so normal. Like none of it ever happened.

As a doctor Jack volunteered in case anyone needed medical assistance. He had helped everyone he could on their side and helped bury the ones he couldn't. Kate said she saw where the tail section landed and could find her way to it and Hurley wanted to go along to help and too see Libby. Jin and Sun stayed behind to help the remaining survivors build a camp and catch fish for dinner.

"Dude, it's good to see you again" Hurley says to Walt when they are far enough away from the crash survivors. "I'm sorry" Walt looks at him. "For not visiting you when we got off the island"

"You already apologized for that"

"I know, but I didn't really mean it then." Hurley tells him "So I'm sorry dude"

"Well you can make up to me by telling me what you did now?" he asks. "Is it only the five of you that remembers?

"Sawyer does too" Kate replies "Were not sure about Locke and Sayid"

"Where are they?" Walt asks he didn't see them on the beach.

"Locke and Sayid got captured by the Others and Sawyer…went to go find…someone" Jack tells him.

"Who was he going to find?" Walt asks.

"Uh…her names Juliet" Hurley replies "She's one of the Others that he fell in love with when they got stuck in the seventies"

Walt raises his eyebrows in confusion.

"It's a long story, dude" Hurley replies shrugging his shoulders.

"You said Juliet?" Walt asks and they nod and look at him. "Tall, blonde, with bright blue eyes and a soothing voice?"

Jack is stunned. "You met Juliet?

"She's a Fertility doctor, right?" They all nod "When they took me, she was the one that brought me food"

Jack smiles slightly, remembering when Juliet had done that for him.

******

_2004 - the original timeline. _

_She pushes open the door slowly. Walt was sitting on the floor with his legs drawn to his chest. She shakes her head sadly and takes a deep breath. "Hi, Walt. I'm Juliet Burke" she says with a smile and places a food tray down on the table. "Cheeseburger and fries" she tells him with a smile. He stays silent and just stares at her. "I'm sure you're hungry and probably missing having real food" she sits down in one of the chairs._

_"Where's my dad?" He asks._

_"You're dad is fine" She says "I'm not here to hurt you, Walt" she tells him gently. _

_"You're lying" he says as his brown eyes bore into hers._

_Her breathing increased and her heartbeat sped up. They had taught her to handle any kind of interrogation techniques but this was just a child, why was she scared. "I'm...not lying"_

_"You're lying to them" he tells her getting up and walking closer to her._

_Juliet swallows. Why couldn't she slow her heartbeat down? "To whom?" she asks as he takes the seat across from her. She couldn't move as if she was frozen in her spot and she couldn't take her gaze from his._

_"The people that sent you in here" is his reply._

_Juliet stares at him. Was he reading her mind? _

_"You pretend to be one of them, but you're not" he tells her and when he takes a bite of the cheeseburger his gaze drops from hers. She lets out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. Within seconds her heartbeat goes back to normal and the slight coldness that filled the room was gone too. Whatever he did it wasn't normal. He was different._

_"Why?" He asks munching on a French fry._

_It took her a while to realize he was speaking to her again. "Why, what?"_

_"Why do you do things for them when you don't want to?"_

_She puts her elbow on the table and rests her chin in her palm. "I don't have a choice" she tells him sadly._

_He looks at her. "Do I?"_

_She looks at him, he was young and smart and he didn't deserve to be here. Kidnapping children is not something she wanted too. She was always sent on these missions because it was easy for her gain people's trust. When she was Obstetrician expectant mothers trusted her to bring their children safely into this world, as a fertility doctor women trusted her to make their dreams of becoming a mother come true. She believed in her work and that's why the trust came easily. She didn't know why they would trust her now when she didn't even trust herself. All she was doing was lying to them. She lied to Emma and Zach about their mother and she was lying to Walt about his father. She didn't know if he was fine. They were told to get Walt by any means necessary and they were armed. "No" she finally answers him._

_*****_

"She was the nicest one" He tells them. She'd sneak them out of the rec room and take them into her house when it was her turn to watch them. She didn't look at him like he was a freak after he showed her what he could do. They were eating ice cream in her kitchen. Zach and Emma were watching cartoons in the living room. A fly had gotten into her house and she tried to smack it with her hand as it flew around the table. He didn't know why he showed her, he never told anyone about his ability, it scared him. He told her he'd get the fly and his eyes followed the insect until his eyes locked on it. The fly was buzzing around and dropped dead in midair landing in the middle of table. Juliet just stared at the fly for a few seconds and then looked at him. If she was afraid of him she didn't show it. She just asked if he killed the fly. It was an accident that the rest of them found out. When he got angry he couldn't control it. Juliet had tried to protect him telling them that the chicken looked sickly and its heart had just stopped beating. They told her that there were things in the world she wouldn't understand and that he was dangerous. He thought they were going to kill him but a day later Juliet came into his room to tell him he was getting on a boat and going home."What happened? Why am I back on the island?"

They told him about the time flashes or at least what information about them they got from Jin and how Sawyer and Juliet had gotten stuck in the 1970's and started a relationship. Then they told him about the bomb and how it was supposed to erase Flight 815 from ever happening.

Walt just stares at them for a few minutes before speaking. "So you...blew up a bomb!?"

Jack shakes his head. "I don't know what happened; the bomb didn't go off when I dropped it. Maybe one of the debris that was being sucked down the hole it…or….Juliet…did" he thinks about it. There was no way anyone could survive a fall like that but on this island anything could happen. _Juliet_ he thought. Her and Sawyer had a son he was still trying to wrap his mind around that. When she answered the door to Jim LaFleur's house he was so happy to see her alive and well. Then he did feel a slight twinge of jealousy when he realized that she was living with Sawyer. She was laughing when she answered the door most likely at something the former conman had said to her. She was happy and in love. He didn't understand the depth of their love until he saw the anguish in Sawyer's eyes when he lost her. It took all the strength he had to pull Sawyer away from the tower with Kate. He really did love her and still loves her. Once he saw Juliet there was nothing any of them could do stop him from going to her and his child.

They walked a little further and heard voice. They crotched behind the trees to make sure the Others weren't there. They smiled when they looked out at the beach and saw Ana-Lucia, Mr. Eko, Bernard and Libby talking to each other. They made their way through the clearing. And were met with stares of the entire tail section as they all dropped what they were doing.

* * *

Put all three on the monitors" She told them as she walked into the surveillance room. She looked at each of them. The Red head was scowling and staring intently at the door. The Asian man was holding his hands to ears like he was in pain. The third was looking around the room curiously. He was dressed in dress shirt with a tie neatly around his neck. The three of them did not look like they belonged together but she knew they were a team of sorts. She also didn't know how she knew that.

"We should talk to the Asian, he looks weak right now. Probably be easier to talk to if we promise him aspirin or something" Tom suggested.

Juliet was suddenly drawn to the screens again as if her mind was acting on its own. She looked at three of them again and facts about them filled her head. The red head was tough and sarcastic with a mean right hook, the Asian had a gift, a gift that allowed him to hear things others couldn't. He wasn't in pain he was trying to block out the noise. The third was a scientist, one that might be able to help her. _How did she know that? Where were those thoughts coming from?_

Ever since she met James, she was hearing voices telling her things about stuff she shouldn't know about. Like the three strangers in this station and the two outside. _Why did it feel like she knew them?_ "No, I'm going to talk to the one in the tie"

Tom nods his head in agreement. "You're right, Julie. The geek looks easier to break"

She just smiles like she's agreeing with him and walks into room across from his cell. _Do you know me?_ Is the first question she wants to ask. But they were all watching her so she decides against that and waits to see if he calls her by her name. He doesn't. He just starts babbling about something under his breath while looking at every inch of the room. So she waits until his eyes find her.

"Can you feel it?" he asks suddenly.

"Feel what?" she replies eyeing him curiously.

"The air, the current, it's electric" he says. "It's different, but how would I know that? I've never been here…"

Ok, she picked the wrong one, this one was not right in the head. She couldn't tell if he was talking to her or to himself.

"There's a cover, the film surrounds trapping"

Now she was seriously starting to believe she was going insane, she understood his babbling. He was talking about the island. He could feel that they were trapped here.

His eyes focus on hers as if he had come of a trance. "I'd like to see Ben" he says to her like this was the first time he saw her.

"Why?"she asks.

"I have a message for him" he replies.

"You have a message for him" Juliet repeats his question back to him.

"Well, I have a message to deliver to him… from someone else"

"And who would that be?"

"Eloise Hawking"

Juliet is shocked to hear that name. Eloise was a former leader of her people she left the island in 1977. "How do you know Eloise Hawking?"

"Not as well as I should." he pauses "She's my mother"

Juliet's eyes are wide with shock. "Your mother….is Eloise Hawking?"

"Yes" he answers.

Juliet takes a deep breath. "What's the message?"

"Well, you see my….mother is very particular. She told me that I'm the only one that can deliver the message or the consequences will be dire"

"Your mother sounds a bit dramatic" Juliet replies with a smirk and crosses her arms.

"You have no idea" Daniel says agreeing with her.

She supposed she was lucky as her reign as leader. After finding out they were stuck on the island and giving birth. They just went through their lives day by day. Unless you tried to leave the island, there were no threats besides the escaped Polar bears and she's pretty sure they got them all. Food was rationed and plenty of fish were caught to keep them full. But these last few days everything started spiraling out of control. Strangers have been on their island this whole time according to them. And they had done something that changed the course of everyone's lives. But it all seemed it all lead back to him.

She'd have to do something that she avoided unless it was absolutely necessary. Something she hated more than anything. She'd have to talk to Ben.

Tbc....

* * *

A/N: In case you're wondering Juliet and Walt did meet according to the Lost Webisode "The Deal" Juliet told Michael that she spent some time with Walt and that he was smart and that he was special. She also told Michael to get Walt off the island to protect him.


	9. Eternity Shall Tell

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

**Ch 9 - Eternity Shall Tell**

A chill radiated from the walls as she walks through the corridor this place was always creepy and now that he that was incarcerated here made it that much worse. She walks over to the guard who's surprised to see her.

"Dr. Burke?" he says to her as she approaches.

"Hello, Andy" she greets him. "I'm here to see him" She tells him.

"I don't know what good it would do you, hopefully it's one of his lucid days" Andy says to her and she raises her eyebrows to him she had not come to see Ben since they put him in here. "Some days he's ranting like a lunatic, other's he'll draw on the walls mumbling to himself and then other days he's almost catatonic, you'll see when you go in there" he says when she still has a confused look on her face. He's not the same, Juliet" Andy gets the key card from his belt, swipes it and enters the code. She goes through the first door and stands at the second one. She inhales and exhales deeply and pushes the door open. She walks in and he gets up from the cot he was laying on when she entered.

The visual effect of seeing him was startling. Skin as pale as ice and thin pink lips with dark black eyes he looked like an actor in a Kabuki drama.

************************

_The nausea had kept her up most of the night and she had finally crawled into bed and fallen asleep when she heard an excessive pounding on her door. In her exhausted state she figures if she ignores it, it will go away, but it doesn't. She looks to her alarm clock to see 3:15 am flashing at her brightly. Then the doctor in her kicks in thinking something else had happened and she bolts upright and runs to the door. _

_She opens it and is pushed backwards as Ben enters her house. "YOU'RE PREGNANT!!" he screams at her. _

_Her heart rate speeds up. She knew she wouldn't be able to hide it forever but she figured she had more time before he found out. She should have known that Ethan would tell him. Ethan thought of Ben as an older brother so he told him everything. _

"_Is this how you going to get back at me?" He continues screaming "By killing yourself. I never thought you'd be willing to take a child with you!"_

"_What?" She says breathing heavily. "If I wanted to kill myself I would've done it already!" She screams back. _

"_You expect me to believe as a doctor you let a mistake like this just happen. That's not like you at all, Juliet" He says to her. "Does Harper know?" _

"_Harper" Juliet repeats. "Goodwin's not the father, we ended are relationship months ago" _

_His eyebrows raise and then lower into a scowl then a small laugh. "So you've just been whoring around then"_

_Before she realizes what she's doing her hand balled into a fist and flew into Ben's face and he fell to the ground with a loud thud. "Don't you ever call me that!!" she screams at him through gritted teeth. _

"_What else am I supposed to think?" Ben says rubbing his jaw. "You were sleeping with a married man, you know what it's like to be the other woman and yet you carried on an affair with him. And now you're pregnant with someone else's baby"_

"_GET OUT!" She screams picking him up by the collar of his shirt and shoving him at the door. She sees the fear in his eyes and she wants so badly to end his life right there, but she lets go and he falls backwards a few steps. _

"_You're not having this baby, Juliet" He tells her. _

"_I am having this baby, Ben" She tells him. "You can't force me to get an abortion"_

"_That's where you're wrong. I can make you do whatever I want!" He says. "I can make them come here right now, have them hold you down and have Ethan can take care of it" his eyes bore into hers as he says that to her. "You may not do what I ask, but all of them will" He says with confidence in his eyes. _

_She backs up now feeling the hot tears streaming down her face. "You wouldn't do that" she says her voice cracking. She knew it was possible for them to overpower her. She couldn't let that happen. She didn't know who her baby's father was but she knew she wanted to keep the baby; she needed to keep the baby. _

"_I would" he says with a smile. _

"_Why…why would you do that to me?" she asks with her hand over her stomach. _

_He walks up to her and backs her up until she hits the wall "Because you're mine!" he screams and turns around, walks out the door and slams it shut. _

_Her heart was pounding in her chest and she was trying to catch her breath as tears overcome her and she falls to her knees sobbing. _

**************

Ben's descent into madness started shortly after that. At first they thought the idea of being trapped was getting to him like it was to all of them. But as the days passed his behavior got more and more erratic. He was becoming a danger to all of them and people were dying because of it. Maybe what kept her level-headed was the fact that she was always trapped here and they were not.

It would start out as mumblings. She kept hearing him mumble that this wasn't right; it's not supposed to be like this. Then he'd start screaming at them about things that haven't happened.

One day he screamed out that she killed Danny, when Danny was standing right next to her. Although she didn't like Danny, he had dislocated her shoulder twice when he was forcing her to work. But she didn't think she could bring herself to just kill him for that. If she was going to kill anyone it had to be for a stronger reason than that.

*************

_When they found out that something was blocking the communications, they had no way to connect to the outside world. His behavior got much worse. He'd scream about that not being true and that people are supposed to come to the island. _

_Ben didn't believe the scientists or didn't care. He kept insisting that they needed to be able to reach the mainland and wanted to keep sending the boats out. He arranged a team to take off from the other side of the island. He didn't think whatever it was went around the whole island there had to be a spot they could leave from. _

_She stood at the docks watching them load up a boat. "Ben they are going to die" _

"_They are to leave the island, Juliet" he says going to help Danny load some luggage. _

"_You are sending them to their deaths!" she screams at him. _

"_Maybe I am, but I have to set this right. This isn't how it's supposed to be" he tells her. She shakes her head, Ben was many things but this new version of him was the scariest. He didn't know what he was talking about. _

_"Don't go Colleen" She tells the woman. Colleen looks at her through squinted eyes. "I know you don't like me and… I don't like you but if you go... you will die and despite our differences I don't want that"_

_Colleen looks to Ben, then back to Juliet and back to Ben. _

"_Get on the boat Colleen" Ben tells her and she nods her head and turns around and gets on the boat. _

_She went back to her lab to work on a serum to allow her to carry to term when she heard it on the intercom system. _

"_All medical personal report to the docks immediately" _

_Her heart was racing as she ran to the docks, she knew what she was going to find. Goodwin and Ethan were rolling out stretchers with the people Ben had sent on the boat. Their eyes were glazed over and there was blood covering their noses and mouths. She saw Danny run to Colleen who lay still on her stretcher. They couldn't do anything to save them; they had no idea what they were dealing with. From what they could see it looked like radiation poisoning. Which made no sense how could radiation be contained to just the outside of the island? If there was some sort of radiation emitting from a source it should've been able to reach them. But none of them were feeling sick it was only when you left the island. _

_Juliet shakes her head sadly. Ben was going to kill them all. He had to be stopped. _

*******************

Now with James telling her that things were different, that she wasn't supposed to be with them and the other people from the plane wanting to speak to him and knowing he was their leader was making her question her original stance. Maybe Ben wasn't crazy, maybe he was telling the truth. That something happened that changed everyone's life.

She walks further into his room and looks around and sees what Andy was talking about, there was writing all over the walls. He stands in a corner watching her as she inspects what he wrote. She sees various dates and with notes besides them. She brings her hands up to one side of the wall her fingers trail along the indentation in the wall as she reads. _Quattour, octo, quindecim, sedecim, viginti tres, quadraginta duo. "_4,8,15,16,23,42" she quietly to herself. She looks further down the wall to see that he had written the numbers multiple times to where it covered half the wall.

Those were the numbers Desmond had to enter into the computer. They thought it was some kind of password that the Dharma Initiative made up. It was the serial number on the door of the hatch, the hatch she woke up on top of. _Why was Ben writing them down and why in Latin? _

She reads more. _September 22, 2004 - Flight 815 crashed_as she reads on she realizes that Ben had written down a time-line.

Ben had said a plane was supposed to crash on the island in one of mumblings and now they found out a plane as always been on the island. Flight 815 was the flight number James told her he was on. She was giving herself a headache trying to think of plausible explanations. She'd already resigned herself to the fact that she's be on this island forever. But she had to know what this other life was supposed to be like. _Would his story match James'? _

"The numbers I keep hearing them… repeated…over and…over in my head" Ben says his voice horse.

"In Latin?" She asks.

"Yes" he replies.

Juliet was even more confused now. _What did those numbers mean?_

"Did it happen?" Ben asks his voice still cracking either from not talking in awhile or talking too much.

"Did what happen?" She asks keeping her voice monotone.

"The plane crash" He says his bug eyes now wild looking. He was so different then the Ben she knew. She looks at him for awhile and doesn't answer him. "It did, didn't it?"

"No" she says and that was the truth.

He slouches back in his seat disappointed. "I was so sure" he mumbles to himself. His eyes dart around for a bit then he locks them with hers. "Why are you here, Juliet?" He asks

His voice and demeanor almost sounding like the old him and it startles her for second. She swallows. She didn't really know why she was here. What could she possibly get from talking to a madman? She takes a deep breath. "You told us that this life was wrong, that it was supposed to be… different" She pauses. "I want you to tell me how and what makes it different"

"Now you want me to tell you" he says with a little anger visible in his eyes. "I did tell you"

"No, Ben you didn't. You would mumble things and then people would die. Tell me what's supposed to be different"

Ben smiles at her and leans back against his chair, then leans forwards with his arms resting on the table. "It started with a plane crash."

* * *

Alexandra Linus stood on the porch watching Juliet leave. Juliet was her sister, her leader, her confidant. But she couldn't believe what she believed in. How can a man she's never met be the father of her child? She walks back in her house and Karl smiles at her from the kitchen table where Jay and James were sitting with him.

She was happy that Karl was there, she knew she loved him when he showed up on her doorstep to tell her father about them. She knew he was afraid because he was shaking and stuttering. Ben had tried to rip them apart, he threw him in the bear cages on the other island, he tortured him and told him he'd kill him if he tried to escape. But Karl never gave up. He didn't look like a brave person but he was. That's when she knew she wanted to be with him forever. Nothing Ben did could stop her from loving him, it was fate.

James sits on the chair across from Alex and Karl. Alex had one hand resting on the table and Karl had his hand covering hers. Alex kept her eyes on him and watched every twitch and movement he made as he tries to make himself comfortable. Jay was sitting in the next room watching cartoons. He smiled at his son; he didn't think he'd ever be proud to say he was father.

"I don't know how you got Juliet to believe…what you told her" Alex says when she's satisfied that the cartoon had Jay's undivided attention.

"I will take a DNA test if you need that to convince you?" James tells her. He wasn't going to leave them and he was going to make sure she never left him again. Without her in his life he was nothing. She gave him a reason to believe.

"I…don't even see how it's possible" She says to him. "She's never met you; she doesn't know who you are"

"She does know me; we've been together for two years." He tells her. "This…this is all wrong; it's not supposed to be like this."

Alex is taken aback by those words. The same words her father used and they looked at him like he was crazy, how could the world be wrong? And now here a stranger was telling her the same thing.

* * *

She walked back to Alex's house. She had tried to keep her face neutral as Ben recounted his tale. He told her as much as he could until his eyes glazed over and he stopped talking. She shined a flashlight in his eyes and he had no reaction, it was like he was in a coma. His breathing was steady and his heart rate was normal, it was like his mind went somewhere else. From what he was able to tell her, she still couldn't believe it. _How could someone change time?_ _Why did he remember this life and why did James?_ _Why didn't she?_

She put on a smile when she entered the young woman's house. She didn't tell Alex that she had gone to see Ben. Jay ran into her arms and she loved that whenever she had a bad day her son could always make her smile. She never really thought about being a mother, it could be because she never met the one guy she thought she could have a family with. But she didn't think that was the reason. She spent almost every waking hour helping other women become mothers and that was fulfilling enough for her. But now looking at her son she couldn't imagine not being one.

"So we have more prisoners?" Alex asks. "How many of them are there?"

"From what I heard from the teams we sent to the beach, about forty seven" Juliet replies and looks at James who stands in the middle of the room with his hands in pockets.

_Her mind flashes to a kitchen where she's making pasta. She hears the door open and she smiles. "Somethin' smells good" he says. She walks the boiling water over to the sink and pours it in and turns around to see him leaning against the doorway smiling holding a sunflower out to her. "Is that for me?" she asks. And he smiles and walks over to her. "You were amazing today" and she can see in his eyes that he really believed that, he really believed that she had done something amazing. He comes closer and she puts her arms around his neck bringing her body as close as she could against him. A small laugh vibrates against her neck making her know that she loved this man. "Thank you for believing in me" He replies with a sound letting her know that he never doubted her. They pull apart she leaves her arms around his neck and she kiss him lightly on the lips and brings her hand up to touch his cheek. He growls lightly in response and leans her back to kiss her again. She brings her hand to the side of his face as the kiss deepens. When she pulls away she smiles at him says "I love you" he not once taking his eyes off of hers says "hm...I love you too" he moans and brings his lips to hers where he receives a small moan in response. _

She opens her eyes and has to catch her breath; she could feel that her cheeks were flushed. They were all staring at her when she finally was able to compose herself.

"Juliet, are you ok?" Alex asks with worry in her eyes. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine" She says trying to act like nothing happened.

"You moaned" Alex tells her.

She tries to keep her face from registering embarrassment. "I'm fine; I think I've just been out in the sun too long"

"Your face got red after you came inside" Karl says.

"Sometimes it takes a couple of hours for the skin to generate heat and change color after exposure" she tells them in her doctor voice.

"I'll keep that in mind next time I'm sunbathin', Dr. Quinn." James says with a smirk, he didn't know what just happened but he liked the smile he saw on her face. "Now that we have that figured out, what's going to happen to me? Am I goin' back in the cages?"

She looks at him. "No, you can...you can come to my house" She needed to talk to him more. She needed more information on what actually happened. She knew James was leaving some parts out. The part about her falling down a hole, the part where she died.

"What?" Alex says loudly.

"I didn't think you and Karl would want him to stay here. So he can just stay at my place until I figure some things out." She tells Alex.

Jay excitedly grabs James' hand. "I kin show you my room!"

Tbc...


	10. And gently Friendship's accents flow

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

**Ch 10 And gently Friendship's accents flow**

They ate dinner together the three of them. Jay excitedly told them about his day with Alex. Afterwards they played some games and Juliet tucked Jay into bed while James watched.

They walked back into the living room together after Jay had fallen asleep. "I think you should do the DNA test" He tells her. "I know you believe me and that means so much to me, ya have no idea. But it would put everyone else at ease…and make you not look like you're crazy"

"Ok" she nods her head and goes to the bathroom. She returns with a swab and a small tube. "Just swipe the inside of your cheek"

"Ya don't need blood?" He asks

"I could but this way is less painful. Saliva is effective enough for parental testing."

He just nods and scrapes the inside of his cheek and drops in the tube she holds out to him. She puts the top on it and place tape around it and writes his name on it. "I'll get Jay's sample in the morning"

He nods again and sits down on the couch she sits across from him. She looks to the ground closes her eyes and sighs. She takes a breath and exhales then she looks at him. "Can I ask you a question?"

He has his hands resting on his thighs as he sits up straight. It was awkward when it shouldn't be. He wasn't supposed to be a stranger to her not when they were sitting in a house similar to one they shared. They should be a family; he should've never missed the birth of their son and missed watching him grow up. Juliet should not have had to raise him on her own. He should've been there for them. He should've fought harder for her, he should've told her that he only loved her and maybe none of this would've happened. "I thought that's what we here for?" he replies.

"Right" She says shyly. It was hard to ask her question when he was looking at her with such sadness and longing. "Why…why were you with me after what Ben says I did to you?"

"Ben! When did Ben say… when did you…I thought he was dead" James says angrily.

"Dead? No, what gave you that idea?" she asks.

"You're the leader, so I assumed that meant he was dead" Of course he really didn't know how their leadership rankings worked.

"Ben's not dead, he's…not all there" She replies. "I saw him when I left you with Alex"

"I thought you were seeing more prisoners"

"I did and then talking to them made me have to speak to Ben" she tells him. "And he told me…that I tasered you, forced you to work in the quarry which we don't even have. He said that I took one of the children that was on your plane and that I held a gun to someone you care about, I think…Kate was her name"

He swallows loudly when he hears Kate's name leave her lips. But there's no recognition there. She didn't know about Kate, she didn't know that Kate had caused her to doubt his love and make her want to never have known him. She just wanted to know if what Ben told her was true. "It wasn't just you, it was all of them." He tells her. "They took Walt not you. Tom took Walt and shot me" He says pulling down shirt to show her. He looked down thinking it wouldn't be there but it was, the little hole that had ripped through his body and almost killed him.

"If I was with them how did we even get together?" she asks she had to know if his story would match Ben's in any way. She knew Ben would tell his skewed version but if this other life had happened to both of them then there would be similarities and that's what she was looking for.

"You betrayed them" He says never taking his eyes off of hers. "You betrayed them to help us kill the ones that attacked and tried to steal the pregnant women."

She closes her eyes and tries to calm her racing heart. Ben had said she betrayed her people when she shot and killed Danny, but she betrayed him when she joined the survivors of flight 815. "He called you Sawyer"

He lets out a little laugh. "That's what I called myself" he tells her. "I was a con man and that was the name I used"

"Sawyer, as in Tom Sawyer?" She asks. "The boy who always tricked people into doing work for him?"

"Yea" he answers with a smile. "But it was also the name of the man that killed my family went by"

She looks at him sadly. "I'm so sorry"

"I know, we talked about it a lot. You were the only I ever really told the whole story to. I went by that name to hide from everyone but most of all from myself" He looks at her. "If wasn't for you I'd still be Sawyer. I go by James because of what you did for me. You made me see that I could be real that its worth it let people in. That I didn't need to be alone anymore that I wasn't alone anymore not when I had you." He could feel the tears starting in the corner of his eyes.

She wipes the tears from her eyes. She couldn't imagine having that much of an impact on anyone not when she kept herself so guarded. She shakes her head. "If that's how it was…then why…why did we change things? How did I get in a hole?"

He closes his eyes and can't look at her. This is what he had avoided telling her. "…it was my fault" he says with tears in his eyes. "It was my fault all of it. I screwed up I was stupid and I'm so sorry" the tears started falling down his cheeks. He had to tell her everything so she'd understand. "I made you doubt my love for you…before we got together there was…someone else. Kate the one you held the gun to. We had somethin', at least I thought it was something. I thought she saw me for who I was and I guess in a way she did. For her there was also someone else Jack is his name and that's the man she looked up to the man I could never be" He took a breath. "I told her I loved her and she didn't say it back. She used me when she got jealous when you spent time with Jack or when she wanted something. I guess I pushed her away too. She'd always come back though, when she got mad at him. I thought that was the best that I deserved; I didn't deserve her love or anyone's love."

Juliet looked at him, when he told the story he looked someone else. He wasn't the man that she met in the cages, the man that told her with complete confidence the story of their time traveling life together. This man, the man telling her his story right now was different.

"…the helicopter we were on was runnin' out of gas. I looked around at all of them. The four of them wanted to go home more than anything. Kate saw me as the bad man, the man who she could never love. So I had nothing to go home to no one that would want to see me. Back in the real world I conned a woman who had my child, a daughter named Clementine." He paused to see her reaction about him having another child. And she looked at him with that blank unreadable face; he loved her more for that because he never saw pity in her face that's what upset him the most when he told people the story of his life. He didn't want people to feel sorry for him.

"I told Kate to look out for her, and then I kissed her and jumped out into the ocean. I swam back to shore and you were there sad and lonely with a bottle of rum." He smiles at her now. "That's when my new life started, my life with you. I don't know what I would've done had you not been there, Juliet. You were my rock, the one person that I could depend on with my life. I never doubted you and I knew you would have my back no matter what." He hangs his head. "But I failed you…I gave you doubts about me havin' your back." He sniffs in his tears. When they came…when Kate came back I was shocked to see her again after all these years. I was feelin' all these emotions I didn't know what they were. But I should've talked about them with you, like we always did. I looked at Kate and you saw that. You saw me look at her and thought that I still loved her. But you have to understand" He pauses.

"Kate's like fire, beautiful to look at and dangerous to hold. With one breath she could set everything on fire but in the end all that would be left was ashes. She was the first woman I loved, but that was the past. When I looked at her I saw why we would never woud'a worked. She didn't see me" He tells her.

"I don't think she ever really looked at me, not the real me. She may have thought she knew me but she never did. She only saw the cover of the book and she didn't want to see the inside. To her I was Sawyer, the con man, the bad man, the wrong man. And I wasn't good enough for her." He brings his eyes to look at Juliet's.

"She never looked at me the way you do. You saw through every barrier I had up, you saw who I am, not who I was. You saw who I could be who I wanted to be. No one has ever seen that in me before." He laughs. "Even now when you don't know me you see me, you believe me, you trust me" The tears start to flow again. "It destroyed me when you thought I didn't love you that you'd rather we never met than have to the pain of losing me. You agreed to blow up the bomb to make that happen, we were above the Swan station and the electromagnet was pullin' everything down and…these…these chains wrapped around you and pulled you in, I got to you before you fell but I was too slow, I couldn't save you so you saved me" His eyes close again thinking of that day. "…I died when you let go of me, Jules." He opens his eyes so he could see her. "You are the one I love now, the one I want to spend my life, the one I want to raise our family with."

Juliet places both hands over her face as the tears stream down her face. She sat there in silence. Finally she speaks. "Why…why don't I remember any of this?"

He hangs his head again and brings his eyes up to look at her. "…I don't know"

"I wanted to forget you and I did" she tells him. James bows his head and closes his eyes. "But here you are and our son is sleeping in the next room. How can I forget when I have proof?" Her mind was going in circles, nothing made sense. The record was skipping, allowing her to see certain memories but not enough to finish them.

* * *

They slowed down and kept quiet as the approached the beach where the tail section people landed. They peered over the leaves to see them.

"Libby" Hurley whispers as he sees her rub her hand along her neck and sigh trying to calm down Bernard who kept asking for his wife. Ana-Lucia was handing food to two children that looked so scared. She sat down to join them trying to comfort them. "Uh…where's Mr. Eko?" Hurley asks as shadow covers them and they look up see him standing above them. They all jump back. "Jesus" Hurley says loudly.

"I am not Jesus" Mr. Eko replies. All Hurley could do was nod.

"We're more survivors from the plane crash we came to see if you need help." Jack says."I'm a doctor"

Eko looks at each of them and nods for them to follow him. They walk over to Ana-Lucia who turns around before they approach. "These are more survivors they say they are from the other part of the plane" He tells her. "This man says he is a doctor" he points to Jack.

Now Ana-Lucia looks them over and sees Walt so she nods. "We have some injured over here" Jack follows her.

Kate and Hurley look at the two children sitting in the sand. They did remember Ana-Lucia saying something about the two children that were with them and taken by the Others.

"This is Zach and Emma" Eko tells them. "And I am Mr. Eko"

"I'm Kate, this is Hurley and Walt" Kate says pointing to each of them.

"Are there more of you?" He asks.

"Yes" Kate replies. "We came here to see if you needed help and to bring back to our camp. ..so we could stick together."

More rustling his heard and they all turn around as a group of people walk out of the jungle. "Are they yours?" Eko asks.

Kate shakes her head and Eko takes the stick that was hanging from his belt out.

The man in front holds his hands in air. "We are not here to hurt to you. We were sent by our leader to see if you need any help"

Jack and Ana-Lucia look up from helping one of the wounded. Jack looked at the people standing there he didn't recognize a single one of them.

"We have been on this island for a long time and we just want to help" He continues to say. "My name is Goodwin and I'm a doctor to my people." He tells them. "We have brought food"

Ana-Lucia and Eko look to them and ask with their eyes if they should trust them.

"Who is your leader?" Jack asks.

"Our leader is named Juliet Burke and…she's one of the most caring individuals you will ever meet" Goodwin tells them sincerely.

Jack nods to Ana-Lucia to trust them. Even if Juliet didn't know them she would never intentionally hurt any of them.

Ana-Lucia walks up to Goodwin. "If you want to help us, help us leave this place. We have children that miss their mother and people that need serious medical attention"

Goodwin looks directly at her. "I'm sorry we can't do that"

"So you're going to help us by keeping us here?" she replies to him.

He drops his gaze from hers and then brings it back. He wasn't sure how much information Juliet wanted to share with them. But he knew she wouldn't want them angry. "We're not keeping you here, the island is"

"So the island has a mind of its own?" She retorts.

He smiles. "I'm starting to think so" he replies. "If you try to leave the island you'll die. We can't leave either."

Ana-Lucia was studying him trying to gage if he was telling the truth. "What do you mean we'll die? Do you not know the way off the island?"

"We know the way off; we used to leave all the time." He answers. "A few years ago something happened and now if you try to leave you'll get sick from what we can tell is a heavy dose of radiation poisoning and then you'll die" He bows his head. "We lost many people that way"

She closed her eyes everything in his body language showed he was telling the truth or he was excellent liar. But despite her trust issues she believed him. "So what you are telling us is that we are trapped here…with all of you"

"Yes" he replies.

Jack and Kate look at each other and then at Hurley and Walt. Jack stares out at the ocean. He thought the bomb would change everything, make it so they never came to the island but all they did now was make sure they could never leave the island. Locke was right they could never escape what was meant to be and they were meant to be here. And now the island made sure of it.

Tbc…

A/N: This is kind of a filler chapter just so all the characters are little caught up on what's going on. :D


	11. Through the Looking Glass

****

In Another Life

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything. They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

A/N: Sorry I took so long for the update work's been a nightmare and I had a terrible case of writers block. So I had to get myself re-acquainted with Lost by watching Season 5 all over again.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

**Ch 11 Through the Looking Glass**

She lay in bed trying to picture him, them together but all she saw was a dream, a fantasy. She could see herself and she could see him but she couldn't touch them. She saw herself as if she was looking at her reflection in a pond it looked so real like there was someone else staring at you from the other side but the second you reach out to touch it falls apart. She wanted desperately to go to that other side and see that woman, the woman James says she is the one who was strong enough to betray the people holding her captive, the one that time traveled and the one that fell in love. But there was nothing but fragments and not enough to begin to put together the puzzle.

Barely able to get any sleep, he got up and went to kitchen. He opened the cabinet closest to the door and got the coffee out and poured it into the maker. He pulled two mugs out of the next cabinet. He held the mugs in his hands suddenly remembering that he didn't live here, the Juliet in the next room wasn't his Juliet. But everything was the same when they lived together.

He heard Juliet's footsteps coming towards him so he placed the mugs on counter and stood still. She walked in wearing a robe and stared at him.

"I'm sorry, I…I forgot" He says sadly.

"It's ok, it's nice to have the coffee already made" She says grabbing the pot and pouring it into both the mugs. She hands him one and he thanks her. They both to go to the kitchen table and sit down.

James looks at her as her blue eyes stare into his. This woman was strong, respected, noble and brilliant, the only thing different with this Juliet was that she didn't know him and that's the part that was killing him. Losing her in that moment it felt like an eternity all he saw was her disappearing, all he felt was her hand slipping from his. He went from that to a reality where she didn't know him. This was his punishment for not believing in them enough to stop her, to save her. "So it's back to Alex's house with us" James says putting on his shoes.

Before she had Jay she knew she was heading on a path of self-destruction. She didn't care about anything and gave serious thought to ending it all. She knew she would've have fallen apart eventually, there was nothing keeping her here. The day Jay was born was the day her life began to feel real. He's the reason she got up every morning, he's the reason she had a smile on her face. But she was still incomplete; there was always that missing link that would make her life a reality. Than James appeared in her life and even without knowing him she felt as if she had finally let out the breath she had been holding. "I can't bring you to work with me, even if I prove you're Jay's father. You're not one of us" She tells him as they walk towards Alex's house.

"I know" he says and leans close to her "And neither are you" he whispers.

* * *

She walked into the surveillance room and tried to sneak back out slowly when she saw who was there. But it was too late the woman turned around.

"Juliet" she said.

"Is Goodwin back yet?" Juliet asked.

"No" Harper replied making sure to keep eye contact with her. They were both good at making each other uncomfortable.

Juliet walked into the room to stare at the monitors. Harper had hated her from the beginning because of Ben's obsession and the fact that she looked like some woman. And maybe she was being petty when she started flirting with Goodwin or maybe she was just resigned enough to stop caring and just did the opposite of what her mind was telling her. Or maybe she rationalized that the woman already hated her why not give her logical reason to.

It was Harper's evaluation that put Ben into lockdown. That was the one and only time they worked together. Ben almost killed Goodwin, he was screaming and ranting that Goodwin was supposed to die. She told them that Ben is suffering from a psychotic break and was no longer fit to lead them. Of course there short comradely was broken when Richard came back and told them that Jacob had chosen her to be the new leader.

Then it took a lot of convincing her that Goodwin was not Jay's father, more so because there was no one else. They had found a way to be civil with each other as long as they just talked business.

"What's in your hand?" She asked.

Juliet looked down at the lab results. "DNA test" she answers and hands it to Harper.

"Of the blonde man?" Harper asks and looks it over. "He's match" Juliet just nods. "So you know him, then"

"Yes" She replies strongly. She did know him; part of her did a part that was lost. But she knew deep in her heart that she knew him and somehow Jay knew him.

"If you know him enough to have had his child than that means they've been here before"

"I don't think they ever left" Harper raises her eyebrows at her. "Dr. Saroyan said the plane was here before we all got trapped on the island. He's working on theories…"

"You don't think he can find out why?" Harper asks in her condescending tone.

Juliet sighs. "I think he needs help, he's the only Physicist we have and this is too big for him to figure out alone" She looks at the three people in the cells. "Did you find anything out about them?"

"The fact that they won't talk, to me. The red head just scowled at me for an hour, the Asian was talking to the air and the nerdy one mumbled to himself the whole time. I think he suffers from memory loss but I also believe that as much as I hate to say this you were right, he appears to be a scientist and he may be the one you are looking for" Juliet looks at Harper. "He was mumbling about temporal displacement and time travel and the universe. But when I asked him about that, he asked me what I was talking about. I wish I could say he was lying but I don't believe he was. I believe he went into a semi-conscious state and forgot what he was talking about as soon as he woke up."

"So what is your consensus? Will they talk?"

"Yes, it's just getting them to, is going to be the hard part. But that's what you're for. That was your special gift" Harper tells her with an annoyed smile.

Juliet watched the man in the tie pace back and forth in the room. "Maybe James knows him"

Harper looks at her. "Do you trust him enough to bring him here?"

"Yes" She needed whatever information she could get on him in order to talk to that man. If people think you know the tiniest details of their life they are willing to spill more. She needed to know who he was.

She turned around when the door opened, they walked James in with a bag over his head and his hands cuffed behind his back. She ran over to him and took the bag off. "Sorry about that" She said to him. "Un-cuff him. I told you to bring him here, not tie him up"

"He's not one of us, Juliet" David says to her.

"No, he's not but he's with me, so he will be treated with the same respect. Is that understood?" David bows his head and leaves the room.

James smiled he loved it when Juliet was forceful. He looked to her wondering what he was brought here for. Then he looked on the screens in front of him. "Daniel…Charlotte…" He says with shock in his voice.

"Well I guess that answers the question I was going to ask" Juliet says.

"How…did they…get here?"

"They were not on your plane?" She asks.

"No, they came on a freighter"

"A freighter?" She repeats. "But you do know them?"

"Yeah" he says just staring at the screen.

"Who are they?"

* * *

Juliet opened the door and walked into the room. Daniel stood up and backed up into the wall. "I'm not going to hurt you, Daniel" she said showing him her hands. "I just want to talk; I figured it would be more comfortable if we did without the glass between us"

Daniel looked at her, when she talked through the glass he didn't notice it but in here her voice had a very calming effect and he felt his nerves settle down. He watched her climb on the table and sit cross-legged with her hands intertwined in front of her.

"She would've been a great psychologist"

"Probably, she likes to figure out how things work and how to fix 'em. But it wouldn't have been enough; she likes working with her hands." He replies.

Harper nods. "She said she knew you and it appears you know her, but I still fail to see how that's possible."

"That's what I'm hoping Danny boy can explain"

* * *

"What area do you specialize in?" Goodwin asks Jack as they tend to the injured.

"I'm a spinal surgeon, you?"

"Radiologist" Goodwin replies.

Jack nods his head. If it had gone down like this the first time they landed on the island life would've been more peaceful. Daniel had told him that blowing up the bomb would change everything and he was right just not in the way he thought. The knowledge the nine of them had, must mean something. They were given a second chance, everyone they lost was alive and now they had a chance to do things differently. He wanted to make sure it stayed that way, because now he had faith that the island wanted them all here for a reason.

She was leaning against a tree staring out at the ocean when he approached her shyly. "Hey" he says. She brings her hand up to shield her face from the sun as she looks at him.

"Hey" she replies back.

"I'm Hu…Hugo Reyes" he holds his hand out.

"Libby Smith" she says shaking his hand. "This place is really beautiful…peaceful" Libby says watching the waves hit the sand.

"Yeah" Hurley agrees it was a beautiful place but it wasn't peaceful, at least not the first few times he was here. Things were different now, the Other were helping them and not trying to kill them, so that was a plus. But he still felt as if the island was different, alive even. The numbers were bad luck and the numbers were connected to the island…

"Are you ok?" Libby asks him and he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. "I'm fine, you're right…it's beautiful"

"This may sound strange" Hurley smiles at her asking her to continue. "Even though we were in a plane crash, it really doesn't feel like we were in one" Libby says hoping she didn't sound crazy.

"That doesn't sound strange, I feel the same way" Hurley replies. He was given another chance, she was given another chance. He had to keep her alive this time.

Kate and Ana-Lucia were standing next to each other watching Goodwin and Jack take care of injured survivors. "What were you before the crash, like what did you do for a living?" Kate asks trying to break the awkward silence. She never really knew Ana-Lucia so she figured maybe should get to know her this time.

"I was a cop" she replies.

"Oh" Kate replies with her heart beat speeding up. After all this time being next to cop made her want to run.

"What did you do?" Ana-Lucia asks.

"I was…a…waitress" Kate replies trying to calm her breathing.

Ana-Lucia nods her head. "If we're stuck here, then I guess it doesn't matter who we were. Now we are all nothing. We have a clean slate."

* * *

"I'm sorry for the way we are treating you. We've haven't had visitors to the island in a long time. We're not bad people but we are careful people. We had to determine if you were a threat or not." Daniel just looks at her without replying. "What we've determined is, we can help each other"

Daniel raises his eye brows at that last remark.

"We can talk more about letting you tell your message to Ben, but first we have something else to talk about. You're a physicist, Astro or Quantum?"

"Both"

"Impressive" She replies. "If your mother is Eloise Hawking that means you must have some knowledge about the island. You see Daniel, the reason we…haven't had visitors is because no one can come to or leave this island…without dying"

Daniel stands up straighter. "What do you mean?"

"If we try to leave this island you will start to feel symptoms of radiation poisoning. This is odd because we do have a radiation contained in one of our stations, but it is somehow off of the island. And we have no idea why"

"What are the symptoms?" He asks.

"Headaches, nose bleeds, double vision that lead to seizures, comas than death"

"I was…studying time travel…and…"

"And what?" she asks calmly.

"And when something or someone is misplaced in time, they suffer side effects, much like ones you are describing"

"Are you saying we are misplaced in time?"

"No, because you said it's only when you try to leave the island?"

"Yes"

"If you and your people were misplaced the radiation poisoning would be affecting all of you regardless of where you were on the island. This…is…whatever is happening here…to this place is something entirely different…"

James warned her about his long pauses in-between his sentences so she waited patiently for him to continue but he stood there silent for some time. So she stood up and walked over to him, he didn't react her to presence and she saw that his pupils were dilated. Finally he spoke.

"Is est non vestri universitas"

Tbc…


	12. Lay it where Childhood dreams are twined

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**In Another Life**

Summary: It's 2007 and a plane crashes on the island. They are all strangers, except for eight passengers that remember everything.  
They got a re-set, just not in the way they thought.

* * *

I have been here before.

But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door,  
the sweet keen smell, the sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before.

How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar  
your neck turned so, some veil did fall, I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight.

Still with our lives our love restore, in death's despite, and day and night yield one delight once more?

"Sudden Light" by Rossetti

* * *

Juliet looks at him with her eyes wide. "I've been hearing that I though lately" she replies.

Daniel shakes his head to clear it. "You have?" She nods as Daniel brings his hands together then points them out at her. "Are you familiar with the Multiverse theory?"

"The theory of multiple universes co-existing with ours?" she asks and smiles at his shock. "I am scientist Daniel and I'm a sci-fi geek" she says. "So you're saying that I not only do I not belong here, I belong in a different universe?"

He smiles back "Well the theory is that there are an…infinite number of universes. That together compromise everything that…physically exists…the entirety of space and time. Every quantum event… in the cosmos, like the collapse of the wave function of a particle, creates multiple…new universes. A new universe is created for every possible outcome… of the quantum event. These new universes themselves split into…other universes and all the universes evolve…in parallel." He tells her. "To put it simply every choice you didn't make…creates another universe. If you choose coffee to drink this morning then another you…in another universe choose tea and that creates a whole..,.other universe." He pauses to catch his breath.

"If it's as simple as choosing my drink, then why am I here? And why are there people out there that remember everything, while all I have is memories that fade in and out?" She wanted to remember that life, she wanted to remember being loved.

"I don't know, it's supposed to be impossible for the universes cross. But if you're saying that there are people that remember the other universe then something went wrong."

Juliet ran her hands through her hair and sighed. "Ok, let's make a deal, Daniel. I'm going to let you give your message to Ben, but in return if this world is wrong then I need you to fix it. So do we have a deal?" She asks him. Daniel Faraday was the son of Eloise Hawking a former leader of the island. She left the island when she was pregnant with him and now he's returned as a physicist no less, maybe he was sent here to help them.

* * *

Juliet walked back into the surveillance room. James stood up when she entered. "The geek may be certifiable but he is a genius. He's the one that told us that if we blow the bomb 815 never crashes. He was right he just didn't know all the variables. Like the one where we crash on another plane in a different universe" Juliet looks at him. "What? I've seen Star Trek" he says with a smile.

"You're the first new people that we've seen in three years" Juliet says "Even if you were always here or appeared here, something changed and we need to use that to find a way off this island." Juliet walks away from him rubbing the back of her neck with her hand. He walks over and holds her hand and she looks at him.

"You are going to get off the island this time, I will make sure of that" James tells her. She looks down at her hand in his and squeezes it tighter. _Another universe _James thought to himself. He did think about if things would've been different had his parents never died, would he have had the nine-five, the house with a wife and kids or would he still been a con man. Was that the moment that made him who he was? If Juliet and he never came to the island would they have ever met? Were they the people they were meant to become?

* * *

Daniel looks around the dimly lit hallway as they make their way towards Ben's cell. The slight humming sound coming from the lights was strangely soothing to him. If Juliet was from another world then his entire life was preparing for this. Traveling from one universe to another was only something he used to dream about as a child. He wanted to escape into a reality where his mother loved him and was proud of anything he did because everything he did for his own mother was never good enough.

Juliet told Andy that they'd be coming this time and he nodded as they approached. They walked through the first door and Daniel held his hand to stop her.

"If you don't mind…Dr. Burke, I'd like…to speak…to him…privately."Juliet looks at him and starts to shake her head. "I know you don't... like that idea but the message…I have is meant…is meant for his ears only. My mother and he have a history as you should know."

Juliet looks at the door that Benjamin Linus is behind and looks at the man that wants to just talk with him.

"If you want me to help…then I will…but I need…to do…this first…and alone is the only I will" He tells her. "This…this as nothing to do with what you are experiencing."

Juliet takes a breath and looks at him. She didn't really care what the message was, she wanted to get off this island and he was the only one that could help. "Ok, Daniel. I'll let you go in alone but I'm going to be standing here with a tranq gun in case something goes wrong."

"Ok" he replies. Juliet opens the door and Daniel walks through. She watches from the doorway as Daniel gives Ben the message from Eloise Hawking. Ben's face remains neutral through the whole conversation and she hated that. He was insane but he was still able to keep his face unreadable when he wanted too. She would find out what Daniel told Ben but she needed to gain his trust first. Daniel was brilliant and loyal to his mother. So getting him to tell the message would take time.

* * *

He was leaning against a wall with his hands over his ears trying to block out the sound. There was so much pain, so much suffering, and so much bloodshed on this island. When he was recruited for this little trip he was told that there were bodies here, he just didn't expect so many. This island had been a war zone for centuries. Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore had promised him a fortune if he found the man they were looking for. He was told this man wasn't dead but could move around like he was and they thought that with his special gift he could find that man.

"Miles" he hears a woman's voice say. He shakes his head, how can one of the dead know his name.

"Miles, you prat I'm not a bloody ghost" She tells him. When she was younger she had told her mother about another world, a paradise. A world with sunshine, yellow houses and temples. A world where a blond queen wanted to take over the land. Her mother had told her that her dreams were just her vivid imagination. She wanted nothing more then to find the way to get to that world. Then she met Eloise Hawking and she told her that she'd find what she had been searching for if she went on this expedition and that her memories were real.

"Charlotte?" Miles asks standing up and going to other end of his room and puts his ear to the wall.

"They took Daniel" Charlotte tells him. She faintly heard Daniel talking to a woman but it was hard to make out what they were saying, she heard doors opening and shutting then it was silent. Daniel wasn't one to stay silent he was always mumbling to himself.

"Why?" Miles asks.

"Because he's weak" Charlotte tells him. She didn't have enough time to get a read on all of them, but like most you go after the weakest one to get what you want. Daniel was genius and would do anything to make his experiments work but wasn't tough when it came to brawn.

_Damn it_ Miles says to himself he knew they needed a better plan then to just walk around the jungle hoping to find Ben. These people were dangerous and have been ruling this island forever. He hoped the dork could take care of himself.

* * *

Alex was playing a game with Jay while Karl was making lunch. Jay was such a happy little boy and smart for his age. She looks at Karl and smiles so happy to have him in her life. She had nightmares where they were separated and never saw each other again, and then the world would be covered in darkness. She would wake up from those dreams in cold sweat and she would reach out to Karl to make sure he was there and cuddle up next to him. The darkness scared her most of all because there was nothing, she was nothing. Karl told her he had dreams like that too and they wondered what it meant, why were they dreaming about a world where they didn't exist?

She shook her head of those thoughts and smiled at Jay who happily pulled the right card and made his way King Candy's Castle. She looks up to see Karl staring at her and she smiles at him.

Karl looks at Alex playing with Jay and he knows how lucky he is to have her. Ben had tried everything to keep him from her even brainwashing but nothing could make him forget her. He didn't know who this James guy was or how got to the island but he could see how much he loved Juliet and Jay. That kind of love is hard to fake so he knew even though he was a stranger to them that he could trust him around Juliet.

* * *

They were walking through the jungle headed back to her house when James stops.

"What's wrong?" Juliet asks him.

"Maybe if you meet the rest of them some more memories will come back." James suggests. He had been thinking about it, her memories appeared when she was near him and he knew she recalled some things about Sayid and Locke but she didn't really know them. Jin, Miles, Jack and even Kate were the one's she interacted with and might have stronger memories of.

They were making their way towards the beach where the tail section landed Goodwin had radioed that they needed help. James smiles when he sees that Jack and Kate were there which wasn't really that surprising. He knew he ran off too but he had reason to while those two didn't know the meaning of the word sit.

Kate was helping Libby bandage up a young woman's arm when she looked up to see Juliet walk out of the jungle. She saw the beam above them breaking and she knew what Juliet was going to do. She was powerless to do anything all she could do was just stand there and watch Juliet fall to her death. She regained enough thought to try and move Sawyer away from the tower; she saw that Sawyer was broken and lost. Without Jack's help Sawyer would've joined Juliet down there and Juliet's sacrifice would've meant nothing. She knew she had seen Juliet earlier but seeing her there with Sawyer at her side like none of that had happened was still jarring.

Juliet walks over to Goodwin who nods at her. Jack and he had just set a broken leg and checking the man's vitals since he had passed out from the pain. Jack looks up at Juliet approaches he hadn't seen her fall down the well but he did see her shooting people with her relaxed manner and standing there when he dropped the bomb and then the next moment she was gone. Now here she was standing in front of him.

"Hi Jack, I'm Juliet" she says holding out her hand.

Tbc…


End file.
